“A proof, Elinor, that you were too frightened to know what was transpiring about you. I am not surprised that Mrs. Lucien should perceive harmonies beyond the hearing of our ears, or of less sensitively organized ones. We were curious, antagonistic, unbelieving. We were determined not to hear and therefore were deaf to the melodies which entranced her.�
“Entranced?�
“Yes, I think we were all entranced, and made to see or hear anything,� replied Mrs. Wylie.
CHAPTER XI
THE FIRE
“Again has come the Springtime, with the Crocus’s golden bloom,
With the sound of the fresh-turned earth-mould and the violet’s perfume.�
—Samuel Longfellow.
It is the spring of Lissa’s second year in her Nebraska home. Nathan, through with his winter duties at the post, has become farmer again, and the prairie, yet gray with the tall wild grass of the previous year, is black-dotted with patches of newly plowed land, while the upspringing verdure gives the landscape a gray-green tint of great beauty.
Lissa has grown to love this Western home, and as we see her now, tripping about the floor of her humble cabin, there is a maturer look in her bright face and pliant figure, and though she is paler in cheek and lip, her smile speaks the joy in her heart. Her neat calico gown is supplemented by a white cambric apron, and as she critically glances about her she is a picture of womanly contentment. She is obliged to make up in swiftness now the time demanded from her work to care for the little seraph who kicks, squirms, and even cries in her waking hours if she is not given immediate and undivided attention. Their house has grown with their family, and a nice little lean-to has been built, giving an extra room, and Lissa seems to have forgotten to wish for the spacious walls or wide balconies of her former home. She has as good as her neighbors, and luxuries are only comparative, after all. It must be confessed, Lissa is not a little vain of the handsome silver, few pieces of cut-glass, and dainty napery which were among her wedding gifts, and which she can now display on occasions to the admiration and envy of her less fortunate neighbors. Only Alice, of all her neighborhood, can outshine her in this, but Mark is an army officer, and quite the great man of the place, and she cannot feel envious of one of the family.
It is nearly dinner time and baby must be put aside while Lissa prepares the table. A motherly solicitude shines in her dark eyes as she places the little autocrat in her crib (a large wicker clothes-basket), puts in her clutching, uncertain grasp the rubber ring, and turns toward her work.