THE THREE WEAVERS
NO better cure could have been found for Lloyd's dejection than her
visit to The Beeches. It was impossible for her to brood over her
troubles while Allison and Kitty were continually saying funny things,
and rushing her from one interesting game to another. After a good
night's sleep the events of the previous day seemed so far away that
what she had considered such a disgrace had somehow lost its sting, and
she wondered how she could have suffered so keenly over it.
Katie Mallard came over soon after breakfast, and they spent nearly the
entire day outdoors. The air was frosty and bracing, and when Mrs.
Walton saw them come running into the house just before sundown with
bright eyes and red cheeks, she felt well pleased with the success of
her plan.
She was sitting in her room by a front window writing letters when the
girls came rushing up the stairs into the adjoining room. Kitty carried
a basket of apples, and Allison some pop-corn and the popper, and
presently an appetizing odour began to steal in as the white grains
danced over the open fire.
As the girls hovered hungrily around, waiting for the popping to cease,
they began a lively discussion which caught Mrs. Walton's attention. She
paused, pen in hand, at the mention of two names, Daisy Dale and the
Heiress of Dorn. They were familiar names, for only the day before Miss
Edith had showed her the pile of books found in Ida's closet, and she
was waiting for a suitable time to speak of them to the girls. As she
folded her letter and addressed it, she decided she would call them in a
little later, when they were through with their apples and their corn,
for a quiet little twilight talk. A golden afterglow gleamed above the
western tree-tops, and, leaning back in her rocking-chair, she sat
watching it fade out, so absorbed in a story she was thinking to tell
them that she ceased to hear the girlish chatter in the next room till
Lloyd's voice rang out clearly:
"I've made up my mind. I'm _nevah_ going to get married!"
"Then you'll be an old maid," was Kitty's teasing rejoinder, "and
people will poke fun at you and your cats and teacups."
"I'll not have any," was the prompt reply. "I nevah expect to have any
moah pets of any kind. Whenevah I get to loving anything, something
always happens to it. Think of all the pets we have had at Locust.
Fritz, and the two Bobs, and Boots, and the gobblah, and the goat, and
the parrot, and deah old Hero! Something happened to every one of them.
The ponies are the only things left, and the only kind of a pet I'd evah
have again. If Tarbaby should die, I'd buy me a hawse, for I don't
expect to be the kind of an old maid that sits in a chimney-cawnah with
a tabby and a teapot. I expect to dash around the country' on hawseback
and have fun even when I'm old and wrinkled and gray. I'll go to
college, of co'se, and I'll have interesting people to visit me, so that
I'll keep up my interest in the world and not get cranky."
"I'll come and live with you," said Allison. "I'll have a studio and
devote my life to making a great artist of myself. We could buy
Tanglewood, and make a moat all around the house so that we could pull
up the drawbridge when we wanted to be alone or were afraid of
burglars."
"Maybe it would be better for me to be an old maid, too," said Betty,
musingly. "I'd have more time to write books than if I had a husband and
a family to look after. And, besides, while I like to read about lovers
and such things in stories, it would make me feel dreadfully foolish to
have any man fall on his knees to me and say the things that Lord Rokeby
and Guy said to Daisy Dale. I don't even like to write those speeches
when I'm in a room by myself. I've tried lots of times, and I've about
decided to skip that part in my story. I'll put some stars instead, and
begin, 'A year has passed, and Gladys and Eugene,' etc."
"I was going to ask mothah how Papa Jack did it," said Lloyd, "but aftah
all that's happened, somehow I'd rathah not say anything about such
things to oldah people. Miss McCannister was so horrified when she found
we had talked such 'sentimental foolishness,' as she called it. I'll
nevah forget the way she screwed up her lips and said, 'It wasn't
considahed propah, when I was a child, for little girls to discuss such
subjects.' I felt as if I had been caught doing something wicked. It
mawtified me dreadfully, and I made up my mind that I'd nevah get to be
fond of anybody the way Ida was, for fear I might be mistaken in them as
she was."
"Everything seems to be a warning lately," said Betty. "Even the
literature lessons this week. If the _Lady of Shalott_ hadn't left her
weaving to look out of the window when Sir Lancelot rode by, the curse
wouldn't have come upon her."
"There!" cried Allison, scrambling to her feet. "That reminds me that I
haven't learned the verses that Miss Edith asked us to memorize for
Monday."
She took a worn copy of Tennyson from the table, and began rapidly
turning the leaves.
"I learned the whole thing yesterday," said Betty. "I can say every word
of part first."
"It's easy," remarked Kitty. "I know part of it, although I'm not in the
class. I learned it from hearing Allison read it:
"'Four gray walls and four gray towers
Overlook a space of flowers.
And the silent isle embowers
The Lady of Shalott.'
Isn't that right?"
"Yes, but that isn't Monday's lesson. It's part second we have to
learn."
"Let's all learn it," proposed Katie. "It's so pretty and jingles along
so easily I'd like to know it, too. You line it out, Allison, as Frazer
does the hymns at the coloured baptizings, and we'll run a race and see
who can repeat it first."
"There she weaves by night and day," read Allison, and then the five
voices gabbled it all together, "There she weaves by night and day."
The concert recitation went on for some time, and presently the lines of
the familiar old poem began weaving themselves into the story Mrs.
Walton was thinking about. The red gold of the afterglow had not
entirely faded from the sky when she left her seat by the window and
went into the next room. The five girls on the hearth-rug were still
chanting the lesson over and over.
"Come hear us say it, mother," called Kitty, drawing up a chair for her.
"Betty learned it first."
Allison deposited the bowl of pop-corn in her lap and passed her the
basket of apples, and then flourished the popper like a drum-major's
baton. "Now all together!" she cried, and the five voices rang out like
one:
"There she weaves by night and day
A magic web with colours gay.
She has heard a whisper say
A curse is on her if she stay
To look down to Camelot.
She knows not what the curse may be,
And so she weaveth steadily,
And little other care hath she.
The Lady of Shalott.
"And moving through a mirror clear
That hangs before her all the year,
Shadows of the world appear.
There she sees the highway near,
Winding down to Camelot.
There the river eddy whirls,
And the surly village churls
And the red cloaks of market-girls
Pass onward from Shalott.
"Sometimes a troop of damsels glad,
An abbot on an ambling pad,
Sometimes a curly shepherd lad
Or long-haired page in crimson clad
Goes by to Camelot.
And sometimes through the mirror blue
The knights come riding two by two.
She hath no loyal knight and true,
The Lady of Shalott."
"Why, she was an old maid! Wasn't she!" said Katie, so plaintively as
they finished that they all laughed.
"That's what Allison and Betty and Lloyd are going to be, mother," said
Kitty, teasingly. Lloyd, with a very red face, hastened to change the
subject. She snuggled up against Mrs. Walton's knee, saying, as she
looked into the glowing fire, "This is the best time of the day, when
the wind goes 'Whooo' in the chimney, and it's cold and dark outdoahs
and cheerful and bright inside. It's just the time for story-telling.
Don't you know one, Mrs. Walton?"
"Of course she does," Kitty answered for her. "And if you don't know
one, you can make one up to order. Can't you, mamsie?"
"Your poem suggested a story," answered Mrs. Walton, and with one hand
smoothing Lloyd's fair head as it rested against her knee, and the other
stroking Kitty's dark one in her lap, she began:
"Once upon a time (the same time that the Lady of Shalott wove her magic
web, and near the four gray towers from which she watched the road
running down to Camelot), there lived three weavers. Their houses stood
side by side, and such had been their equal fortunes that whatever
happened under the roof of one had always happened under the roofs of
the others. They wove the same patterns in their looms, and they
received the same number of shillings for their webs. They sang the same
songs, told the same tales, ate the same kind of broth from the same
kind of bowls, and dressed in the same coarse goods of hodden gray.
"But they were unlike as three weavers could possibly be. The first
insisted on weaving all his webs a certain length, regardless of the
size of the man who must wear the mantle. (Each web was supposed to be
just long enough to make one mantle.) The second carelessly wove his any
length that happened to be convenient, and stretched or cut it afterward
to fit whomsoever would take it. But the third, with great painstaking
and care, measured first the man and then the web by the inches and ells
of his carefully notched yardstick.
"Now to each weaver was born a daughter, all on the same day, and they
named them Hertha, Huberta, and Hildegarde. On the night after the
christening, as the three men sat smoking their pipes on the same stoop,
the father of Hertha said, 'Do not think me puffed up with unseemly
pride, good neighbours, but wonderful fortune hath befallen me and mine
this day. Clotho, the good fairy of all the weavers, was present at my
Hertha's christening, and left beside her cradle a gift: a tiny loom
that from beam to shuttle is of purest gold. And she whispered to me in
passing, "Good fortune, Herthold. It is written in the stars that a
royal prince shall seek to wed thy child."'
"But Herthold's news caused no astonishment to his neighbours. What had
happened under the roof of one had happened under the roofs of all, and
the same good fortune was written in the stars for each, and the same
gift had been left by each child's cradle. So the three friends rejoiced
together, and boasted jestingly among themselves of the three kings'
sons who should some day sit down at their tables.
"But presently Hildgardmar, the father of Hildegarde, said, 'But there
may be a slip twixt cup and lip. Mayhap our daughters cannot fulfil the
required condition.'
"At that they looked grave for a moment, for Clotho had added in
passing, 'One thing is necessary. She must weave upon this loom I leave
a royal mantle for the prince's wearing. It must be ample and fair to
look upon, rich cloth of gold, of princely size and texture. Many will
come to claim it, but if it is woven rightly the destined prince alone
can wear it, and him it will fit in all faultlessness, as the falcon's
feathers fit the falcon. But if it should not be ample and fine, meet
for royal wearing, the prince will not deign to don it, and the maiden's
heart shall break, as broke the shattered mirror of the Lady of
Shalott.'
"'Oh, well,' said Herthold, when the three had smoked in silence a
little space. 'I'll guard against that. I shall hide all knowledge of
the magic loom from my daughter until she be grown. Then, under mine
own eye, by mine own measurements that I always use, shall she weave the
goodly garment. In the meantime she shall learn all the arts which
become a princess to know--broidery and fair needlework, and songs upon
a lute. But of the weaving she shall know naught until she be grown.
That I am determined upon. 'Tis sorry work her childish hands would make
of it, if left to throw the shuttle at a maiden's fickle fancy.'
"But Hubert shook his head. 'Why stew about a trifle!' he exclaimed.
'Forsooth, on such a tiny loom no web of any kind can well be woven.
'Tis but a toy that Clotho left the child to play with, and she shall
weave her dreams and fancies on it at her own sweet will. I shall not
interfere. What's written in the stars is written, and naught that I can
do will change it. Away, friend Hildgardmar, with thy forebodings!'
"Hildgardmar said nothing in reply, but he thought much. He followed the
example of the others, and early and late might have been heard the
pounding of the three looms, for there was need to work harder than ever
now, that the little maidens might have teachers for all the arts
becoming a princess--broidery and fair needlework and songs upon the
lute.
"While the looms pounded in the dwellings the little maidens grew apace.
They played together in the same garden and learned from the same
skilled teachers their daily lessons, and in their fondness for each
other were as three sisters.
"One day Huberta said to the others, 'Come with me and I will show you a
beautiful toy that Clotho left me at my christening. My father says she
gave one to each of us, and that it is written in the stars that we are
each to wed a prince if we can weave for him an ample cloak of cloth of
gold. Already I have begun to weave mine."
"All silently, for fear of watchful eyes and forbidding voices, they
stole into an inner room, and she showed them the loom of gold. But now
no longer was it the tiny toy that had been left beside her cradle. It
had grown with her growth. For every inch that had been added to her
stature an inch had been added to the loom's. The warp was Clotho's
gift, all thread of gold, and it, too, grew with the maiden's growth;
but the thread the shuttle carried was of her own spinning--rainbow hued
and rose-coloured, from the airy dream-fleece of her own sweet fancies.
"'See,' she whispered, 'I have begun the mantle for my prince's
wearing.' Seizing the shuttle as she had seen her father do so many
times, she crossed the golden warp with the woof-thread of a rosy
day-dream. Hertha and Hildegarde looked on in silent envy, not so much
for the loom as for the mirror which hung beside it, wherein, as in the
Lady of Shalott's, moved the shadows of the world. The same pictures
that flitted across hers, flitted across Huberta's.
"'See!' she cried again, pointing to the mirror, 'That curly shepherd
lad! Does he not look like a prince as he strides by with his head high,
and his blue eyes smiling upon all the world? He carries his crook like
a royal sceptre, forsooth. Well you may believe I am always at my mirror
both at sunrise and sunset to see him pass gaily by.'
"'Yon long-haired page in crimson clad is more to my liking,' said
Hertha, timidly. 'Methinks he has a noble mien, as of one brought up in
palaces. I wonder why my father has never said aught to me of Clotho's
gift. I, too, should be at my weaving, for I am as old as thou,
Huberta.'
"'And I also,' added Hildegarde.
"'Ask him,' quoth Huberta. 'Mayhap he hath forgot.'
"So when Hertha reached home, she went to her father Herthold, and said,
timidly, with downcast eyes and blushes, 'Father--where is my loom, like
Huberta's? I, too, would be weaving as it is written in the stars.'
"But Herthold glowered upon her grimly. 'Who told thee of aught that is
written in the stars?' he demanded, so sternly that her heart quaked
within her. 'Hear me! Never again must thou listen to such idle tales.
When thou art a woman grown, thou mayst come to me, and I may talk to
thee then of webs and weaving, but what hast thou to do with such things
now? Thou! a silly child! Bah! I am ashamed that ever a daughter of mine
should think such foolishness!'
"Hertha, shamed and abashed, stole away to weep, that she had incurred
her father's scorn. But next day, when they played in the garden,
Huberta said, 'Thy father is an old tyrant to forbid thee the use of
Clotho's gift. He cannot love thee as mine does me, or he would not deny
thee such a pleasure. Come! I will help thee to find it.'
"So hand in hand they stole into an inner room by a door that Herthold
thought securely bolted, and there stood a loom like Huberta's, and over
it a mirror in which the same shadows of the world were repeated in
passing. And as Hertha picked up the shuttle to send the thread of a
rosy day-dream through the warp of gold, the long-haired page in crimson
clad passed down the street outside, and she saw his image in the
mirror.
"'How like a prince he bears himself!' she murmured. 'My father is
indeed a tyrant to deny me the pleasure of looking out upon the world
and weaving sweet fancies about it. Henceforth I shall not obey him, but
shall daily steal away in here, to weave in secret what he will not
allow me to do openly.'
"At the same time, Hildegarde stood before her father, saying, timidly,
'Is it true, my father, what Huberta says is written in the stars?
To-day when I saw Huberta's loom I pushed back the bolt which has always
barred the door leading into an inner room from mine, and there I found
the loom of gold and a wonderful mirror. I fain would use them as
Huberta does, but I have come to ask thee first, if all be well.'
"A very tender smile lighted the face of old Hildgardmar. Taking the
hand of the little Hildegarde in his, he led the way into the inner
room. 'I have often looked forward to this day, my little one,' he
exclaimed, 'although I did not think thou wouldst come quite so soon
with thy questions. It is indeed true, what Huberta hast told thee is
written in the stars. On the right weaving of this web depends the
happiness of all thy future, and not only thine but of those who may
come after thee.
"''Tis a dangerous gift the good Clotho left thee, for looking in that
mirror thou wilt be tempted to weave thy web to fit the shifting figures
that flit therein. But listen to thy father who hath never yet deceived
thee, and who has only thy good at heart. Keep always by thy side this
sterling yardstick which I give thee, for it marks the inches and the
ells to which the stature of a prince must measure. Not until the web
doth fully equal it can it be safely taken from the loom.
"'Thou art so young, 'tis but a little mantle thou couldst weave this
year, at best. Fit but to clothe the shoulders of yon curly shepherd
lad.' He pointed to the bright reflection passing in the mirror. 'But
'tis a magic loom that lengthens with thy growth, and each year shall
the web grow longer, until at last, a woman grown, thou canst hold it up
against the yardstick, and find that it doth measure to the last inch
and ell the size demanded by a prince's noble stature.
"'But thou wilt oft be dazzled by the mirror's sights, and youths will
come to thee, one by one, each begging, "Give _me_ the royal mantle,
Hildegarde. _I_ am the prince the stars have destined for thee." And
with honeyed words he'll show thee how the mantle in the loom is just
the length to fit _his_ shoulders. But let him not persuade thee to cut
it loose and give it him, as thy young fingers will be fain to do. Weave
on another year, and yet another, till thou, a woman grown, canst
measure out a perfect web, more ample than these stripling youths could
carry, but which will fit thy prince in faultlessness, as falcon's
feathers fit the falcon.'
"Hildegarde, awed by his solemn words of warning, took the silver
yardstick and hung it by the mirror, and standing before old Hildgardmar
with bowed head, said, 'You may trust me, father; I will not cut the
golden warp from out the loom until I, a woman grown, have woven such a
web as thou thyself shalt say is worthy of a prince's wearing.'
"So Hildgardmar left her with his blessing, and went back to his work.
After that the winter followed the autumn and the summer the spring many
times, and the children played in the garden and learned their lessons
of broidery and fair needlework and songs upon the lute. And every day
each stole away to the inner room, and threw the shuttle in and out
among the threads of gold.
"Hertha worked always in secret, peering ever in the mirror, lest
perchance the long-haired page in crimson clad should slip by and she
not see him. For the sheen of his fair hair dazzled her to all other
sights, and his face was all she thought of by day and dreamed of by
night, so that she often forgot to ply her needle or finger her lute. He
was only a page, but she called him prince in her thoughts until she
really believed him one. When she worked at the web she sang to herself,
'It is for him--for him!'
"Huberta laughed openly about her web, and her father often teased her
about the one for whom it was intended, saying, when the village lads
went by, 'Is _that_ thy prince?' or, 'Is it for this one thou weavest?'
But he never went with her into that inner room, so he never knew
whether the weaving was done well or ill. And he never knew that she cut
the web of one year's weaving and gave it to the curly shepherd lad. He
wore it with jaunty grace at first, and Huberta spent long hours at the
mirror, watching to see him pass by all wrapped within its folds. But it
grew tarnished after awhile from his long tramps over the dirty moors
after his flocks, and Huberta saw other figures in the mirror which
pleased her fancy, and she began another web. And that she gave to a
student in cap and gown, and the next to a troubadour strolling past her
window, and the next to a knight in armour who rode by one idle summer
day.
"The years went by, she scattering her favours to whomsoever called her
sweetheart with vows of devotion, and Hertha faithful to the page alone.
Hildegarde worked on, true to her promise. But there came a time when a
face shone across her mirror so noble and fair that she started back in
a flutter.
"'Oh, surely 'tis he,' she whispered to her father. 'His eyes are so
blue they fill all my dreams.' But old Hildgardmar answered her, 'Does
he measure up to the standard set by the sterling yardstick for a
full-grown prince to be?'
"'No,' she answered, sadly. 'Only to the measure of an ordinary man. But
see how perfectly the mantle I have woven would fit him!'
"'Nay, weave on, then,' he said, kindly. 'Thou hast not yet reached the
best thou canst do. This is not the one written for thee in the stars.'
"A long time after a knight flashed across the mirror blue. A knight
like Sir Lancelot:
"His broad clear brow in sunlight glowed.
On burnished hooves his war-horse trode.
From underneath his helmet flowed,
His coal-black curls, as on he rode
As he rode down to Camelot."
"So noble he was that she felt sure that he was the one destined to wear
her mantle, and she went to her father, saying, 'He has asked for the
robe, and measured by thy own sterling yardstick, it would fit him in
faultlessness, as the falcon's feathers fit the falcon.'
"Hildgardmar laid the yardstick against the web. 'Nay,' he said. 'This
is only the size of a knight. It lacks a handbreadth yet of the measure
of a prince.'
"Hildegarde hesitated, half-pouting, till he said, beseechingly, 'I am
an old man, knowing far more of the world and its ways than thou, my
daughter. Have I ever deceived thee? Have I ever had aught but thy good
at heart? Have patience a little longer. Another year and thou wilt be
able to fashion a still larger web.'
"At last it came to pass, as it was written in the stars, a prince came
riding by to ask for Hertha as his bride. Old Herthold, taking her by
the hand, said, '_Now_ I will lead thee into the inner room and teach
thee how to use the fairy's sacred gift. With me for a teacher, thou
canst surely make no mistake.'
"When they came into the inner room there stood only the empty loom from
which the golden warp had been clipped.
"'How now!' he demanded, angrily. Hertha, braving his ill-humour, said,
defiantly, 'Thou art too late. Because I feared thy scorn of what thou
wast pleased to call my childish foolishness, I wove in secret, and when
my prince came by, long ago I gave it him. He stands outside at the
casement.'
"The astonished Herthold, turning in a rage, saw the long-haired page
clad in the mantle which she had woven in secret. He tore it angrily
from the youth, and demanded she should give it to the prince, who
waited to claim it, but the prince would have none of it. It was of too
small a fashion to fit his royal shoulders, and had been defiled by the
wearing of a common page. So with one look of disdain he rode away.
"Stripped of the robe her own fancy had woven around him, the page stood
shorn before her. It was as if a veil had been torn from her eyes, and
she no longer saw him as her fond dreams had painted him. She saw him in
all his unworthiness; and the cloth of gold which was her maiden-love,
and the rosy day-dreams she had woven into it to make the mantle of a
high ideal, lay in tattered shreds at her feet. When she looked from the
one to the other and saw the mistake she had made and the opportunity
she had lost, she covered her face with her hands and cried out to
Herthold, 'It is thy fault. Thou shouldst not have laughed my childish
questions to scorn, and driven me to weave in ignorance and in secret.'
But all her upbraiding was too late. As it was written in the stars, her
heart broke, as broke the shattered mirror of the Lady of Shalott.
"That same day came a prince to Hubert, asking for his daughter. He
called her from the garden, saying, gaily, 'Bring forth the mantle now,
Huberta. Surely it must be a goodly one after all these years of weaving
at thy own sweet will.'
"She brought it forth, but when he saw it he started back aghast at its
pigmy size. When he demanded the reason, she confessed with tears that
she had no more of the golden warp that was Clotho's sacred gift. She
had squandered that maiden-love in the bygone years to make the mantles
she had so thoughtlessly bestowed upon the shepherd lad and the
troubadour, the student and the knight. This was all she had left to
give.
"'Well,' said her father, at length, ''tis only what many another has
done in the wanton foolishness of youth. But perchance when the prince
sees how fair thou art, and how sweetly thou dost sing to thy lute, he
may overlook the paltriness of thy offering. Take it to him.'
"When she had laid it before him, he cast only one glance at it, so
small it was, so meagre of gold thread, so unmeet for a true prince's
wearing. Then he looked sorrowfully into the depths of her beautiful
eyes and turned away.
"The gaze burned into her very soul and revealed to her all that she had
lost for evermore. She cried out to her father with pitiful sobs that
set his heartstrings in a quiver, 'It is _thy_ fault! Why didst thou not
warn me what a precious gift was the gold warp Clotho gave me! Why didst
thou say to me, "Is _this_ the lad? Is that the lad?" till I looked only
at the village churls and wove my web to fit their unworthy shoulders,
and forgot how high is the stature of a perfect prince!' Then, hiding
her face, she fled away, and as it was written in the stars, her heart
broke, as broke the shattered mirror of the Lady of Shalott.
"Then came the prince to Hildegarde. All blushing and aflutter, she
clipped the threads that held the golden web of her maiden-love, through
which ran all her happy girlish day-dreams, and let him take it from
her. Glancing shyly up, she saw that it fitted him in all faultlessness,
as the falcon's feathers fit the falcon.
"Then old Hildgardmar, stretching out his hands, said, 'Because even in
childhood days thou ever kept in view the sterling yardstick as I bade
thee, because no single strand of all the golden warp that Clotho gave
thee was squandered on another, because thou waitedst till thy woman's
fingers wrought the best that lay within thy woman's heart, all
happiness shall now be thine! Receive it as thy perfect crown!'
"So with her father's blessing light upon her, she rode away beside the
prince; and ever after, all her life was crowned with happiness as it
had been written for her in the stars."
There was a moment's silence when Mrs. Walton ceased speaking. The fire
had died down until only a fitful glimmer lighted the thoughtful faces
of the girls grouped around her on the hearth-rug. Then Kitty said,
impulsively:
"Of course Hertha means Ida, and you want us all to be Hildegardes, but
who is Huberta?"
"Mittie Dupong, of course!" answered Allison. "And Flynn Willis and Cad
Bailey and all that set we were so disgusted with at Carter Brown's
party. Didn't you mean them, mother?"
"Yes," said Mrs. Walton, well pleased that the tale had been interpreted
so quickly. "I must confess that I told the story solely for the moral I
wanted to tack on to the end of it. You do not know how my heart has
ached for Ida. Poor misguided child! From what I have heard of her aunt
I think she must be like Hertha's father, and made Ida feel that she had
no sympathy with her childish love-affairs. Then Ida made the mistake
that Hertha did, wove her ideals in secret, and fitted them on the first
boy who pleased her fancy. Once wrapped in them she was blind to all his
faults, and could not judge him as other people did. She made a hero of
him. I blame her aunt as much as I do her, because she did not teach her
long ago, as Hildgardmar did his daughter.
"Little girls begin very early sometimes to dream about that far-away
land of Romance. The teasing questions older people ask them often set
them to thinking seriously of it. They call their little playmates their
sweethearts, and imagine the admiration and fondness they have for them
is the love that is written in the stars. Nobody explains to them that
they will outgrow their early ideals as they do their dresses.
"I can remember how my ideals used to change. When I was a little girl,
about as old as Elise, I thought that my Prince Charming would be like
the one in the story of the Sleeping Beauty. I dreamed of sitting all
day beside him on a crystal throne, with a crown on my head and a
sceptre in my hand. But as I grew older I realized how stupid that would
be, and I fashioned him after the figures that flitted across my mirror
in the world of books. He was as handsome as a Greek god, and the feats
he performed could have been possible only in the days of the Round
Table.
"Then I outgrew that ideal. Others took its place, but when a woman
grown, I held up the one that was the best my woman's heart could
fashion, I found that my prince measured just to the stature of an
honest man, simple and earnest and true. That was all--no Greek god, no
dashing knight, but a strong, manly man, whose love was my life's crown
of happiness."
She glanced up at the portrait over the mantel, and there was an
impressive pause. Lloyd broke the silence presently, speaking very fast
in an embarrassed sort of way.
"But, Mrs. Walton, don't you think there was some excuse for Ida besides
her being blinded to Mistah Bannon's faults? He made her believe she had
such a good influence ovah him that she thought it was her _duty_ to
disobey her aunt, because it was moah important that he should be
reformed than that she should be obeyed in a mattah that seemed
unreasonable to Ida."
"Yes," was the hesitating answer. "But Ida was largely influenced to
take that stand by the books she had been reading. That's another matter
I want to speak about, since my little girls have confessed to the
reading of 'Daisy Dale' and the 'Heiress of Dorn.' While there is
nothing particularly objectionable in such books in one way, in another
their influence is of the very worst. The characters are either unreal
or overdrawn, or they are so interestingly coloured that they are like
the figures of the shepherd lad and the long-haired page in the mirrors
of Hertha and Huberta. In watching them a girl is apt to weave her web
'to fit _their_ unworthy shoulders, and forget how high is the stature
of a perfect prince.' Such books are poor yardsticks, and give one false
ideas of value and measurement.
"Ned's plea is what nearly every wild young fellow makes, and nine times
out of ten it appeals to a girl more than any other argument he could
use. 'Give _me_ the mantle, Hildegarde. It will help me to live right.'
So she takes him in hand to reform him. Nothing could be purer and
higher than the motives which prompt her to sacrifice everything to what
she considers her duty. I had a schoolmate once who married a bright
young fellow because he came to her with Ned's plea. Her father said,
'Let him reform first. What he will not do for a sweetheart, he will
never do for a wife.' But she would not listen, and to-day she is living
in abject poverty and cruel unhappiness. He is rarely sober.
"In olden times a man didn't come whining to a maiden and say, 'I long
to be a knight, but I am too weak to do battle unaided. Be my ladye fair
and help me win my spurs.' No, she would have laughed him to scorn. He
won his spurs first, and only after he had proved himself worthy and
received his accolade, did she give him her hand.
"Oh, my dear girls, if you would _only_ do as Hildegarde did, ask first
if all be well before you clip the golden web from the loom and give it
to the one who begs for it! He is not the one written for you in the
stars--he does not measure to the stature of a true prince if he comes
with such a selfish demand as Ned did."
"That is a story I'll nevah forget," said Lloyd, soberly. "I think it
ought to be printed and put in the seminary library for all the othah
girls to read."
"And some of the fathers and mothers, too," added Betty. "Ida's aunt
ought to have a copy."
"No, it is too late," remarked Katie. "It's a case of what grandpa would
call 'locking the stable after the horse is stolen.'"
There was a knock at the door. "Supper is served," announced Barbry's
voice in the hall.