Friendship Village Love Stories

muslin, cut in an antiquated style and trimmed with tarnished silver passementerie. In it the child was hardly less distinguished than she had bee

haven't got any good dress this summer till I get it made

very well, Mig

it—here," said Miggy, shyly. "You've go

Pg 82] one wakens to find flooded by a gibbous moon, these have for me no greater sorcery than morning in a little book-filled room, with the

is, I find, seldom sufficient to think even of the body of one's work, which to-day proved to be in my case a search in certain old books and manuscripts for fond allusions. If one can, so to say, think in and out till one comes to the spirit of a task, then there will be evident an indeterminate sense of wings. Without these wings there can be no expression and no

g

story, barely more than a reference, to the love of an Indian woman of this Middle West for her Indian husband, sold into slavery by the French Canadians. It is a simple story—you will find smal

le; and the whole time was like a quiet cup. In that still hour experience seemed drained of all but fellowship, the fellowship of Miggy and my books and the darling

ettle if two words had the same derivation, or to find if some obsolete fashion in meanings could not yet be worn with impunity. It grieved the dear housewife, I remember, and we tried to tell her how much more important these things were than that our new potatoes should be buttered while they were hot. But she never could see it, and potatoes made us think of Ireland, and in no time we were deep in the Celtic revival and racing off to find "The Love Talker." I remember but one dinner interruption, and that was when we all left in the midst of the fish to go in the study and determine if moonlight shining through stained glass does cast a coloured

ow before which Miggy was seated, I saw Peter, cutting my neighbour's grass. I understood at once that he had chosen this morning for his service in order to be near Miggy. It all made a charming sight,—Peter, bareheaded, in an open-throated, neutra

t one can see well within one's own soul, I have fancied that I have detected an aroma of consciousness, of definite self-wonder, in the Out-of-doors. Fleetingly I have divined it in the surprise of Dawn, the laughter of a blue Forenoon, the girlish shyness of Twilight. And this morning I wanted self-wonder for Miggy

"Peter is not at work to-da

ked out

answered. "It's for overtime. This must b

n't you want to go and ask Peter

dismissed this. "This i

ressed the matter curiously. "J

g

of the manuscript and she

y at all. I just know him to have him walk home with

imes breaking bread with Miggy. I understood that to invite a

if he never ate before," said

n't you—tell me some, please? I can't bear to thin

and looked at me. And the idea of having Peter wit

I took. In these days when Helen and Juliet are read aloud to children while they work buttonholes in domestic science class, think of the[Pg 88] pure self-indulgence of coming on a living spirit—I say a living spirit—who had never heard of the beloved women of the world.

ng. And it is so that my self-indulgence would lead me to spend my days idling over these shadowy figures in the old romances and the old biographies. The joy of it never leaves me. Always from these books drifts out to me the smoke of some hidden incense that makes the world other. Not that I want the world to be that

her, of Nicolete and of Griselda and of Psyche and of the great sun of these loves that broke from cloud. She listened, wrapt as I was wrapt in the telling. Was it strange that the room, which had been like a quiet cup for serene companionship, should abruptly be throbbing with the potent principles of the human hea

there more like that

ople who wrote them down, there

into the books at all,"

he choir of little bright breasts whose raptures nobody hears, nobody miss

ots of folks being that way rig

at I should

"I s'pose that was something like th

of the big chair and lai

used to be here, an' that died, an' that wasn't in love with her even if he had stayed living, and it did that to her. You know .

ge and a dwarf and a river winding from towered city t

he chorus and paid his dues and set in the bass corner all winter to watch her and he can't sing

g

music teacher is so fair, that no one could

clock, and she cries when anybody even whistles his tunes—isn't that some like Brunhilde, that you said about, waiting all alone on top of the mountain? I

man in the pointed gray shawl may not have a heart

he family, and keep house, and keep house. It seems as if she's sort of like P

ed into the colourless, tidy keeping of her house, there is something shining,

his hotel bar fiddling, and Mis' Hubbelthwait shoves him his meals in on to the cigar

r beauty, and a Griselda, with no hope of a sweet surprise of a love that but tested her? Truly, it was as Miggy said:

se were

unt them?" For Aucassin and Nicolete were happy and so are Liva

ration never seems so typical of anyt

ged the night of the circus Liva told me—e

nted. So, I fancy, might all love-in-the-

g

t winter, that I was their bridesmaid, and that rode off in the hills that w

he young husband and wife, of whom I shall tell you

d to Miggy abrupt

repeate

not

out the win

eter's now. And he wears black cl

sin was now, too; and that he wore the clothes of his times, and that if he d

ken, in the same way that all the ancient

ggy, laying her han

I. And a very goo

g

nds with a manner of

ttle shoulders went up and she caught her

ng for which we had been searching: the story of the wife of Kiala, a Wisconsin Indian chief who was sold into slavery and carried to Martinique. And alone, across those hundreds of mi

se it happened so near and because of this universe in general, I w

said, "is it

heart is big enough to h

n quickly on the blue

r knew!"

wonderful thing of al

g

Miggy looked away from Peter, and I thought—though perhaps after all it was merely the faint colour that often hovers in her cheek. I felt, however, that if I had again suggested to Miggy t

age we lunch at twelve, and so my forenoon was done and even the simple tasks I had set were not all finished. I wonder, though, if deep within this fond forenoon we

. And over our luncheon Miggy has

ink everybody would want to