BEAUTY BECOMES IMMORTAL.
It was the good custom of Mark Brace to close the day with prayer; and
sometimes a word or two of the psalms for the day penetrated the
sedulously deaf ears of Doris.
Such happened to be the case one August night, and set the beauty
thinking. She was perched on the sill of the dairy window, next morning,
watching Mattie make butter, but her brow wore a perplexed frown, and a
look of curiosity not provoked by butter-making was in her blue eyes.
"What is the matter? What are you thinking of, Doris?"
"I am thinking that I am an example of Scripture truth."
"In what particular?" asked Mattie.
"In the particular of tumbling into the pit, or catching in the net,
duly set forth by me for other people."
"I don't quite understand you."
"Then you are even duller than usual, and, as I may no more speak in
parables, I will expound myself clearly. I deliberately endeavored to
entrap and entangle Earle Moray into loving me, for my summer pastime. I
did not duly consider that I might fall in love with him myself."
"Why not, if you desired him to love you?"
"That was merely part of beauty's dues, child. Why not? He is not rich
enough, or great enough; he cannot take me to London, and make me a
society queen."
"Certainly not. You did not expect that."
"True. And I did not expect to fall in love with him."
"But you have? Surely you have, he loves you so much."
"Eh? Do you want me to love him? I thought you wanted him."
"I only want him to be happy," said Mattie, turning away, with a blush.
"Perhaps I love him a little. I am not capable of loving much," said
Doris, with exceeding frankness. "My chief affections are set upon the
pomps and vanities of this life, which I presume were renounced for me
in my baptism."
"Don't be so wicked," cried the scandalized Mattie.
"And yet I don't know that I could say 'yes,' if Earle asked me to marry
him. I might, and then repent, and take it back. I suppose, if he asked
father and mother, they would say 'yes,' and be fearfully awkward about
it."
"You shall not talk so about them!" said Mattie, indignantly.
"I don't feel to them as you do--why is it? I don't feel a part of the
Brace family. I like you, Mattie; father amuses me with his outspoken,
homely ways; I don't consider mother much. She is good, but commonplace,
like brown bread. In fact, you are all too rustic, and homely, and
pious, and common-sensical for wicked me. Are you done with that butter?
Why don't it grow made? I am sick of life. Earle is off to Brakebury for
his mother. It is only half-past eight, and I feel as if I had been up a
century. Come with me to get blackberries."
"I cannot. I have much dairy work to do yet," said Mattie.
"I wish you _would_ go for blackberries for supper," said Patty Brace,
coming in. "You don't seem disposed to do anything useful,
Doris--suppose you try that."
"I take care of my room, and my clothes," pouted Doris, "and that nearly
kills me. I wish I had a maid!"
Patty laughed.
"Well, child, the woods are cool and beautiful, and you are tired of
doing nothing. Take this basket, and try and fill it with blackberries."
Fearful of being asked to do some more practical duty if she rejected
this, Doris picked up the basket, put on a pair of gloves, tied her
sun-hat down under her distracting little chin, and set forth toward the
knoll, a place famous for blackberries. The grass was long and thick,
the aftermath of clover loaded the air with fragrance, scarlet creepers
ran along the hedges, and at the knoll, with purple stems and green and
orange leaves, grew the blackberries in globules of polished jet. An
inspiration of industry seized Doris, and she filled her basket; the
soft little tips of her fingers were dyed crimson with the fruit. She
lingered over her task. Earle might return, and it would be pleasant
under the trees, birds singing and grass rustling about them, while
Earle talked poetry to her.
But Earle did not come, and something in the silence of nature set this
thoughtless creature to thinking.
It was one of those solemn hours of life when our fate hangs in the
balance. What of her future? What should she do with herself? Should she
give up her frantic ambition, her intense desire after excitement,
riches, and splendor, and, accepting an honest man, settle in a simple,
comfortable home, and grace it as a good wife and mother all her days?
Could she do that?
Should she refuse Earle Moray, on whose lips an offer of himself and his
all was trembling? Should she send him away? She scarcely felt ready for
that. She had grown to love him a little--just a little--but more than
any one--except herself. Should she fly this homely, quiet life, these
good, uncongenial people, fly to the great city, and set out under a
feigned name to make her own way in the world, as singer, actress--any
wild, adventurous path that might find her at least a lord for a
husband? Should she?
"Can I give him up? Can I leave him to Mattie? Will he ever be famous
and rich enough to make it worth while to nourish my little bit of love
for him into real love, if I can ever love? Oh, for some good fairy to
rise up and tell me what to do!"
She started in sudden fear, for surely a step was coming close to her,
some one from the other side of the coppice, who had watched her unseen.
Not a fairy. A gentleman. A very presentable gentleman, who said:
"I beg pardon. Do not let me alarm you."
Then the two looked at each other.
Doris saw a handsome, middle-aged man, palette on his thumb, box of
paints under his arm, portable easel in his hand; wide-awake hat,
velveteen suit. She promptly summed him up--"artist."
He saw--Doris; Doris, mold of beauty; naiad in grace; innocence in her
startled eyes; face of an angel; mien of a wood nymph. He began to
believe in the gods of old. He said to himself, "Maid or spirit? Mortal
or vision?"
"Forgive me for startling you," he said; "but I have been watching you
as you stood under this tree----"
"I hate to be watched," interrupted Doris.
"As a man I was guilty; as an artist, guiltless, for an artist, above
all things, loves and serves his art, and considers all he sees as
subservient to it. I came to Downsbury in quest of studies in still
life. For years I have had an ideal of a face that I wished to paint in
my best mood: a face after which all should wonder. I have searched
cities and country; I have wandered in my quest for that face through
other lands; and when I saw you under the tree, I was all the
artist--all lost in art--for yours is the face I have been seeking for
my canvas."
"Why, do you mean I would make a picture--a real picture?" demanded
Doris, with studied simplicity.
"Yes; ten thousand times yes! Under this greenwood tree, your basket at
your feet, your hat swinging in your hand, your eyes lifted--yes, a
picture to be known and praised forever. Child, I will make your beauty
immortal."
This was what she had dreamed.
A poet was singing her praises, and would do so, whether she played him
false or not; and here was an artist to paint her for a world to admire.
Could she who so inspired men tie herself to the narrow bounds of one
humble, rustic hearth? Never!
"May I paint you?" demanded the artist. "May I set you in canvas, in
immortal youth and loveliness, to live years, perhaps centuries hence,
in deathless beauty?"
"The picture--the face--will live! Where, in those far off ages, shall
_I_ be?" asked Doris, earnestly.
Gregory Leslie thought the word and mood strange.
"The best part of you is immortal," he said, gently.
"And what would you call my picture?"
"'INNOCENCE.' Yes, 'INNOCENCE' should be its name!"
"But what in me seems to you the image of '_Innocence_?'"
Stranger question still. But he answered as an artist:
"You have an ideal brow, rounded at the temples as the old masters
painted their angels. Your eyes are large, bright, clear, as seeing more
of heaven than earth. Your lips have the most exquisite curve. The form
of your face, its coloring, your hair, are all simply perfect!"
"You shall paint my picture!" cried Doris, joyously, changing her mood.
"You need ask no consent but mine!"