Lady Mercy sat writing of love in the early hours of morning. She had
been christened Mercy, but the people called her the "Windflower." She
was born in a high March wind, which had once more wooed her sisters
into life. They lay like a fall of snow in the adjacent forests.
As the girl grew the title of the "Windflower" suited more and more her
long fair hair and clear grey eyes.
She had never known any home beyond this beautiful palace. Here, in the
heart of a pastoral country, the birds sang and the flowers bloomed all
through the year. It was a haven of peace, of glorious morning dawns and
wind-swept evening skies.
Her mother, the widowed Countess, wished to keep her among the flowers
and meadows, and she had reached her seventeenth summer without ever
having been in a city. She had, indeed, many learned teachers, and had
heard and read of the great world which lay beyond the hills surrounding
her home, but had no longing in her heart to go there. She found hosts
of friends in nature--the flowers, birds, dogs, horses, golden fish in
the fountain, and the sun; but most of all the wind. It seemed as though
the poetic title, given to her by the good people of the village, had
already exercised an influence upon her life. She loved the wind,
whether he came from the icefields of the north or the sun-plains of the
equator, whether his breath were redolent of western seas or of spices
and Arabian perfumes.
To feel his kisses on her face, to have him whirl her round in his
strength, to bend before his mighty wings as did her sisters, the
Windflowers, this was her delight. Her play hours were passed in
dreamland peopled with her own mystical creations. What should she know
of love? She was, indeed, an utter stranger to it, and yet she wrote of
love, and called her hero "Terah."
But the time had come when the Countess thought her daughter ought to
begin to realise that the great world was not an ideal one like that of
her dreams.
"Mercy," she said, "why do you always write of 'Terah' as you call him?
He seems to be the hero of all your stories, and he is quite impossible.
You must not imagine that people in the great world are as lovely in
their lives as your flowers are. 'Terah' is an ideal."
"An ideal?"
"Yes, there is no such man."
"In what way is he not true?" asked the girl, her eyes full of wonder.
"Describe him again, and I will explain."
"His name speaks for him; it means that he was a breather of good like
the wind, only he was always gentle. Then he drove away sorrow. He was a
comforter; his face was most beautiful; he was all mercy, all love; and
he had thought of others so much that self was quite dead in him. Is
that impossible in that wide world yonder?"
The Countess sighed as she answered, "Do not make him so handsome,
Mercy, and then perhaps he will be a more probable character, the man
enriched by Providence with perfect beauty such as your hero cannot help
being self-imbued. It is the old story of Narcissus, every glass greets
him with the picture he likes best to see; even the eyes of the woman he
loves are dimmed by the reflection of his image."
[Illustration]
Months passed, and a great change was noticed in Lady Mercy. She grew
paler and paler; she wrote no more stories; and all her studies were
stopped. She rose very early, and walked miles in the woods and by the
river, as if seeking for something. The "Windflower" seemed to have been
bruised by a rough tempest.
A renowned doctor came from the metropolis and pressed her to say what
ailed her.
"I am looking for 'Terah.' Mother said he was an ideal, merely the
creature of my brain, and since then I have lost him," she moaned. "Ask
her to take me to the great city that I may seek him, for I think he has
gone there to prove that he is true."
And so the "Windflower" was uprooted from among her kith and kin. She
journeyed to the distant town, past the river and over the hills.
And all was changed. She was thrust into the world of fashion. Dressed
in costly silks with long flowing trains, her hair was not allowed to
hang loosely over her shoulders any more. She was "out," so it was
dressed high on her head by a French _coiffeur_. She was forbidden to
walk unattended in the great city. Even in the parks she was always
accompanied by a chaperon. It was not correct to be seen alone, and
comfort and freedom had to be sacrificed.