The Story of a Child

speak of her at length. It seems that at first she was no more to me than a natural and instinctive refuge where

ble tenderness which I felt when one May morning she entered my room with a bouquet

nd to keep warm. By the rays of light that filtered in through the closed shutters I divined the springtime warmth and brightness of the sun and air, an

stinctly how she looked as she stood upon the threshold of the door. And I remember

yellow roses and a shawl of lilac barege (it was the period of the shawl) sprinkled with tiny bouquets of violets. Her dark curls (the poor beloved curls to-day, alas! so thin and white) were at this time without a gray hair. There was about her the fragrance of the May d

nger had a desire to weep, nor to rise from my bed, nor to go out. She was with me and

whether she was young or old; nor did I realize until a later time that she was beautiful. No, at this period that she was her own dear self was enough; to me she was in face and form a person so apart and so unique that I

my mother with words filled with the meaning I wish to convey. They are words which cause bountiful tears to flow, but tears fraught with I know

a to-morrow in which there shall be no to-morrow; but no, I cannot! Rather I have always had a horrible consciousness of our nothingness-dust to dust, ashes to ashes. Because of my mother alone have I been able to keep intact the faith of my early days. It still seems to me that when I have finished playing my poor part in life, w

far off place, preserved her earthly aspect. I think of her with her dear white curls and the straight lines of her beautiful profile that the years may have impaired a little, but which I still find perfect. The thought that the face of my mother shall one day disappear from my eyes forever, that it is no m

ee from all material feeling that that alone gives me an inexplicabl

t morning have impressed me so vividly, for she was nearly always with me. It all seems very

that when I am far distant on the ocean, in hours of danger, I think of it with tenderness, and see it in the place where it has lain for years, in

in its color (now faded), in its quaint Indian pattern and tiny bouquets of violets, I still find an emanation from my mother; I believe that I borrow therefrom a holy calm and sweet confiden

e most personal I have eve

thought the lovely queen to whom I would dedicate this book; it is as if I were writing her a long letter with th

athy have followed me thus far; and all those who cherish, or who have been che

strangers to an all absorbing love, they will not be able to imag