“I did not know how dear a sister might be. It will seem like a dream, if I must give you up so soon.” And although Margaret’s heart was sad she tried to hide it under a smiling exterior.
“Never mind,” she said. “It will not be for long. A few short months will soon pass by, then a long summer will be ours to do with just as we see fit—a long delicious summer of enjoyment and planning. Listen! they are planning now. We are in that, and must hear all about it.”
Slipping one hand through Osmond’s arm, the other arm about the waist of her mother she drew them to where the others had drawn a circle about Hilda who, having been importuned, was trying to make plain that vague sweet dream of her future co-operative home, and none so attentive, or none more so than Owen. She spoke of the spacious halls where the ardent searchers after knowledge of any kind might find their teacher; of the library stocked with volumes from the ceiling to the floor; of the lecture hall and the theater; of the opportunities where every talent could be cultivated; of the liberty—the free life—where every fetter should be broken; of the dining hall where they would partake of their evening meal midst flowers and music; of the common parlor where every evening should be an entertainment for all wherein love and genuine sociability should always preside; of the sacred privacy of the rooms where each man or woman should reign king or queen—the sanctum of each, closed to all intruders, consecrated to the holiest and divinest of emotions and self-enfoldment. She spoke of the grand conservatories filled with choicest flowers—the sweet-scented blossoms, the trailing vines, the exotic plants; of the spacious gardens, the sparkling, ever-playing fountains; of the delicious, health-giving baths; of the life of unconventionality,—of the abandon; of the nursery rooms where baby lips were lisping their first words and little toddling feet taking their first uncertain steps; of the things of beauty surrounding the prospective mother; of the unutterably sweet welcome that awaited each coming child; of the full understanding that would be taught to woman of the responsibility of calling into a life a new being; of how man would revere her, how he would wait and abide her invitation; of the sweet co-operation and planning how all should be worked to keep up the financial part.
“O,” said she, “it should, it would be paradise!—this my dream. But ah me! it is only a dream.”
As a being transfixed Hilda stood among them, her eyes shining, her cheeks glowing, her bosom heaving, looking far beyond them into space. A feeling came over Lawrence Westcot as with bated breath his eyes rested on her, of how utterly unworthy he was of the love of a creature so grand, so superior. A still, small voice whispered, “Make yourself worthy!”—and then and there a high resolve was formed in his mind that he would surely do so. A solemn vow rose as a silent prayer from the depths of his heart that some day he would realize that sweet invitation. With him every man in the room became conscious of a feeling of inferiority, but not an impulse to bow in humility. Rather each head was crested higher with a feeling of lofty aspiration.
Owen Hunter answered the closing remarks of Hilda’s dream picture:
“Why, my dreaming maiden, should your dream be but a dream?”
A sad smile played about her lips,
“You forget that it is such an expensive one. It would take a fortune, an almost limitless fortune, to build us such a home. Of course we could be very, very happy in our little circle, as it is, in a much smaller and less expensive home, but I would have it large, so that we might welcome all who possess the same lofty thought to our circle, so that we should be able to give to the world an object lesson in the art of making life worth living, so grand and so glorious that the whole world would want to imitate our example.”
Owen smiled.