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 1 
 
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 % 
 
 2 
 
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 ■ 4 
 
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\\X 
 
f 
 
 I 
 
 CHAON ORR 
 
 PORTIONS OF HIS AUTOBIOGRAPHY 
 
 m 
 
 Mrs. Eva Rose York. 
 
 " Wait : mj faith is largo in time, 
 And that which shapes it to some perfect end.' 
 
 AUTHOR'S EDITION 
 1896. 
 
 BETiLEVILLE 
 Sun Printinfc and Publishing' Company, Ltd. 
 
 Umy be ordcrMi (hrou«h any aewMicklrr or direct from the publialier*. 
 
T-T 
 
 Of{K. fe ^ 
 
DEDICATED 
 
 To my home dear ones, 
 
 to whom, near and far, 
 
 my heart sends 
 
 GREETING. 
 
 By love for them these pages came, 
 Nor do I need to write the name 
 
 Of each I hold so dear: 
 For he, or she, will read this verse, 
 And all my constant love rehearse, 
 
 And shed, from love, a tear. 
 
CONTENTS: 
 
 I I 
 
 I. 
 II. 
 III. 
 IV. 
 V. 
 VI. 
 VII. 
 VIII. 
 IX. 
 X. 
 XI. 
 XII. 
 XIII. 
 XIV. 
 
 The Twins. 
 
 Katie Graham. 
 
 Memories of Childhood. 
 
 The Circus. 
 
 In the Metropolis. 
 
 Probier.j. 
 
 Alfred Corley. 
 
 Entanglement. 
 
 The Awakening. 
 
 Chaos. 
 
 Shod. 
 
 Lena Hart. 
 
 Clouds Gather and Break. 
 
 Green Pastures and Still Waters. 
 
 ii„ 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 This book is fragmentary. It is not intended as an 
 attempt at a novel. The scenes are without location, 
 and some of the characters to which the reader is 
 introduced drop out of the narrative unceremoniously. 
 I have endeavored to trace the development of the real 
 life of Chaon Orr, and have made my people and events 
 serve to this end only. 
 
 E. R. y. 
 
 BSSAXJL. 
 
 ''truth 
 
 Page 68, 18th line, for ''truth which we 
 acceptedf ,** read '* truths which we accepted." 
 
 NoTB.— The poem at the close of the tenth chapter 
 is from the pen of my twin sister, Mrs. J. J. Baker. 
 
 E. R. Y. 
 
( 
 
 8i< 
 
 mi 
 
 th 
 
 ne 
 
 eT 
 
 at 
 
 thi 
 
 wJ 
 
 sh 
 
 shi 
 
 su: 
 • 
 
 sel 
 th< 
 to 
 na 
 yo 
 Ka 
 
 mi 
 mi] 
 
I. 
 
 THB TWINS. 
 
 ^NE afternoon as my mother sat in a very easy 
 chair in her own room, embroidering a gar- 
 ment not tremendously ambitious in its dimen- 
 sions, Katie Graham entered and began to brush my 
 mother's beautiful hair. When Katie related to me 
 this incident, I gathered that my mother's hair did not 
 need brushing at that particular moment. But when- 
 ever Katie wished to converse with my mother upon 
 a subject of great importance, she always introduced 
 the subject by a gentle brushing of that lady's hair. So 
 whil<) my mother embroidered, Katie brushed, and as 
 she did so she hummed now and then a strain of what 
 she knew to be my mother's favorite song. At length, 
 summoning all her courage, she said : 
 
 " Law to goodness, Mrs. Orr, aint it time you was 
 settlin' on a name ? Accidents is liable to happen in 
 the best o' regoolated families, an' it would be a shame 
 to let the precious creature go for weeks with no other 
 name than * it.' An' it's my private erpinion that 
 you're goin' to need two names, both boys'." And 
 Katie brushed steadily and gently. 
 
 ''Why, Katie!" exclaimed my mother. '*What 
 makes you think that ?" 
 
 " Law to goodness, ma'am ! You're forgettin' how 
 much older'n you I am~a great many years, remem- 
 
8 
 
 OHAON QBE 
 
 - 1 
 
 bar. There is seyeral things about you that I have 
 been noticin' of late, an' between you an' me an' the 
 gate post, it's twins ! An' law to goodness, if you 
 knowed how terrible tiresome it is to try to think when 
 one's real weak, you'd get your names ready : both 
 boys'." 
 
 My mother smiled, but the smile was followed by a 
 sigh as she languidly adjusted the soft pillows at her 
 back. 
 
 ''I'll think about it, Katie," she replied. Then 
 pointing vo her table, added: 
 
 " Please give me that book of poems before you go 
 down. And I think you might bring my bell up here." 
 
 My mother did think about it, and, that rery 
 evening, she talked with my father about it. 
 
 "Have you any choice, dear?" he enquired, as he 
 held her hand and turned the ring upon her finger. 
 
 '* No, James," replied my mother, ** only I had hoped 
 the little stranger would be a girl so I could call her 
 Annette, or something with that pretty ending. 
 Clochette I like, too." 
 
 It is probable that at this point my mother turned 
 the leaves of the book of poems which for months had 
 been her constant companion. 
 
 '* There is no doubt," said my father, " that if his 
 lordship arrives in a duplicate form, the young gentle- 
 men will be opposite extremes in temperament." He 
 said this with a mischievous little laugh that brought 
 the bright color to my mother's cheeks. For she her- 
 self had been given to extremes during this particular 
 period of her life. But whether in the extreme of 
 
 •mutm 
 
THB TWINS 
 
 gladness or of sadness her charms never diminished. 
 She was young and pretty and tender. My father 
 loyed her devotedly. 
 
 ^' you will not be disappointed," continued my 
 father, " if Providence sends you one or two boys 
 instead of a firirl, will you, Maggie? I should think 
 two boys would be as good as one girl." 
 
 " No, not particularly," answered my mother, '* only 
 I want pretty names for my children ; not John, nor 
 Tom, nor Jane, nor Rebecca." 
 
 My father's heart was tuned to the universal har- 
 monies. He had what my mother called a ** Theory 
 of Universal Oneness," and pronounced views on 
 prenatal influences. So he said : 
 
 *' I think Chaos and Cosmos would be capital names 
 for the twins." 
 
 Here my father broke into a laugh and my mother 
 cried: 
 
 '^ Oh, James ! The whole world would laugh at us- 
 Those are not names at all." 
 
 "Certainly not!" replied my father. '* But seri- 
 ously, Maggie, I think if we changed the ending of 
 those words, that Chaon and Cosmon would be good 
 names. Now, don't you ?" 
 
 *'I do rather like them: and wouldn't they be so 
 odd ? And classic, too !" 
 
 My mother left her chair to search among her books. 
 But Katie came to help her prepare for bed, so she 
 whispered her secret to my father as he was leaving 
 the room, then clapped her han is in glee at his serious 
 reception of it, ■ • 
 
10 
 
 CHAOM ORR 
 
 '* We have decided upon the names, Katie," said my 
 mother, as she wound her watch. *' They are to he 
 Chaon and Cosmon.*' 
 
 '* Law to goodness !" exclaimed Mrs. Oraham. 
 '' Why didn't yo' choose Jerusalem and Jericho?" 
 
 "Now, Katie! They are good names; and it is 
 only because you are ignorant that you cannot see the 
 beauty in them." 
 
 Here my mother "fell to pouting," as Katie ex- 
 pressed it, and for some time did not speak to her 
 faithful nurse. But after Katie had left her, and she 
 had said her prayers, she rang for the good woman 
 and asked her to forgive her for being so disagreeable 
 to her, adding that she should have remembered that 
 Katie had never heard of chaos and cosmos. 
 
 We arrived one beautiful morning in September just 
 ao the sun was rising. I have learned that my mother 
 was pleased with this circumstance. She said if wo 
 had been born ca a cloudy day she could Dever have 
 been perfectly happy. But great was the consterna- 
 tion when it was known that one of " the boys " was a 
 girl. Certainly my mother's joy was unlimitef* vind 
 my father shared it. But the names! Ther>^ . ^re 
 not two suck striking names in any language, and 
 the idea of discarding them gave my parents some 
 sorrow. 
 
 It was finally decided that the boy should be given 
 one of the two names, the one best suited to his 
 temperament. Not many days passed before I evi- 
 denced an extreme vivacity, accompanied by an 
 ei^iiibition of self-will. I was immediately named 
 
/'said my 
 are to he 
 
 Graham, 
 icho?" 
 and it is 
 lot see the 
 
 Katie ex- 
 ak to her 
 ^ and she 
 d woman 
 agreeable 
 ered that 
 
 THE TWINS 
 
 11 
 
 Ohaon. Then as my little sister slept peacefully beside 
 her, my mother said to my father : 
 
 "James, dear, I have a name for our darling: 
 Gosmon-ette." 
 
 "Good, Maggie, Good!" exclaimed my father: 
 " Chaon and Cosmonette." 
 
 It was some time before Katie could become recon- 
 ciled to my name. She thought Cosmonette pretty 
 enough and something like a name. But Chaon ! She 
 positively pitied me. and usually called me " the son," 
 or "Laddie." 
 
 mber just 
 y mother 
 aid if we 
 >ver have 
 onsterna- 
 s " was a 
 iite<l K^d 
 er^ . jre 
 &ge. and 
 its some 
 
 be given 
 to his 
 
 e I evi- 
 by an 
 named 
 
11. 
 
 KATIE GRAHAM. 
 
 ATIE was an invaluable member of our house- 
 hold. She was the widow of a sailor who lost 
 his life saving from drowning a man 
 who hated him. Katie had also buried a child in mid 
 ocean. She came to our house a few months before 
 Cosmonetta and I were born, and remained there until 
 she died. She was my mother's house-kneper, nurse 
 and spiritual adviser. Often, too, she was her counsel 
 in intricate matters of jurisprudence, and when my 
 father was absent from home Katie was my mother's 
 '* right hand man." She tipped the scales at one 
 hundred and eighty seven . To us children she was 
 the wonder of wonders. There was no limit to the 
 store of her fairy tales. She knew millions of things 
 about kings and queens and warriors. She could give 
 the names of scores of plants and animals, and knew 
 all about ships and the sea. She was fond of children, 
 but more especially of us, and had a most comfortable 
 way of moving about in our bedroom, as if in search of 
 something, until we were asleep. But her deepest love 
 she gave to my mother, whom, in her most tender 
 moments, she addressed as " Lovie." 
 
 When Cosmonette and I were seven and a half yeAra 
 old, a little sister was sent to us, a beautiful child 
 whom my mother named Leonora. But the fever came 
 
 ii'iL 
 
KATIE ORAHAM 
 
 18 
 
 and stole her away. Then Katie used to rock my 
 mother in her arms at she would rock a child, and 
 quiet my mother's grief by telling of her own. 
 
 " Lovie." she would say, ** there is somethin' in your 
 singin' that reminds me o' my own dead baby. I 
 wonder why it is that I never hear you hummin' a 
 toon about the house but I think of her ! Maybe it's 
 because it's tender like an' beautiful as be all children 
 before they've told their first lie. Anyway, I think of 
 her. I shet my eyes an' I see her own two bright ones 
 close before me, an' her hair like wavin' gold. But 
 bye an' bye I see her goin' farther an' farther away, 
 an' them two eyes gets dim and dimmer like stars goin' 
 out in the mornin'. The wavin' golden hair disappears, 
 an' baby Nina's gone. Then if you keep on singin', 
 the pearly gates opens an' I go in an' wander up an' 
 down the streets o' the Celestial City. It's all awful 
 uncertain, an' I seem to be walkin' on air. But 
 presently somethin' comes towards me like a line o' 
 light turned into a beavenly bein'; an' the eyes 
 brighten up, an' a voice says, * Mamma ! Mamma ! ' 
 Then I know it's baby Nina, spirtalized. I hear music 
 all the time, an' for all there's so much light there 
 ain't no shadows nowhere. Then when I come to my 
 senses, I'm layin' on the lounge in my room with your 
 voice hangin' about me. Don't cry, Lovie, for that's 
 where baby Leonora is to-night, spirtalized, Lovie, 
 spirtalized. If yo' could but once see her there yo' 
 would not wish her back here. Think o' all the things 
 she would have to suffer if she stayed : all the children's 
 diseases, and then the disappointments o' young folks 
 
T 
 
 i!i 
 
 14 
 
 GHAON OBR 
 
 who never find life what they expected ; then maybe 
 the sea, Oh the cruel sea, Lovie. Bus now it's ever- 
 lastin' singin' an' sunshine, singin' an* sunshine, 
 Lovie." 
 
 Here Katie would brush away a tear, and then break 
 into a song which if not artistic was certainly inspiring 
 in its way. Having thus freed her overcharged heart 
 she would continue : 
 
 " Now there's the twins. Cosmonette won't have 
 much trouble. I think the Lord'U let her down real 
 easy, for she's pretty nigh the kingdom even now. 
 To' can't look into her face nor listen to her words 
 without seein' that there's a spirital hankerin' about 
 her. An' law to goodness ! if she aint a beautiful 
 character it's because beauty's run out. But I guess 
 there's enough left for her even if her mother was 
 bom before her. But Chaon ! May the Lord have 
 mercy on that boy. He wants to do right, but 
 Laddie's one o' them misfortunate creatures that's 
 always in trouble— I mean in their souls, an' that's 
 the worst kind o' trouble. Fightin' for bed an' bread 
 aint nothin' to fightin' with them foes which nobody 
 sees but God an' us. An' no one can be as lovin' as 
 Laddie an' not get trouble over it. So we must be 
 patient, an' try an' show him the right way, an' not 
 always be expectin' him to be in the wrong. For if 
 Laddie aint happy he is miserable, an' if Laddie is 
 miserable the Lord only knows what he might do. " 
 
 1 'I I, 
 
 i.''iU4 
 
III. 
 
 MEMORIES OF CHILDHOOD. 
 
 INGE penning the previous chapter I have sent 
 my thoughts farther hack into the years, and 
 I recall a long white road which, covered with 
 small stones, some smooth, some sharp, reflected the 
 lierht of a midsummer afternoon sun. The road hegan 
 at a group of massive huildings, and terminated in 
 front of a smaller square huilding over the door of 
 which appeared these comfortable words : The Public 
 Library. 
 
 Cosmonette was with me. I think we must have 
 been playing in my mother's garden— she always had 
 one— when we were seized with the wild idea of cross- 
 ing that road. The project was no sooner agreed upon 
 than we began to put it into operation, and I remember 
 seeing little boots tossed in the air as they were drawn 
 excitedly from little feet. Proud and brave we went 
 together, Cosmonette and I, hand in hand. 
 
 A board walk lay along the street in front of my 
 father's house. With a heroism that must have been 
 truly beautiful, we had anticipated s5omo difficulty in 
 crossing the gravel road, but who would have dreamed 
 that a dragon lay in ambush right at the outset ? Tt 
 was a painful bit of business, for the midsummer sun 
 was merciless. Even to-day I can feel the blistering 
 heat of those rough boards beneath our baby feet. 
 
16 
 
 CHAON ORR 
 
 ii 
 
 11. ! 
 
 ijlii 
 
 Cosmonette looked very sad and ready to cry. I sup- 
 pose I distorted ray features beyond recognition as I 
 stood first on one foot and then on the other, clinging 
 to Cosmonette's xiand. The thought of retreat, how- 
 ever, never came to us, and after a few moments of 
 painful effort— whic h seemed like so many hours — we 
 I'eached the strip of green grass beyond the boardwalk. 
 Cosmonette was wise, and dropped my hand as wo 
 took our first step upon the gravel road. What a 
 revtlation this was to us ! Another step seemed im- 
 possible. The pain was intense, as the sharp points of 
 the broken stones scratched our feet, To add to the 
 bitterness of the situation, we heard the rattling of a 
 wagon, and beheld two immense horses coming ta- 
 wards us, pram.ing and snorting, looking blacker than 
 the ferocious beasts of the jungle. 
 
 " Oh help ! help ! help ! " Cosmonette screamed 
 violently, and the brusque fanner lad, who had come 
 to town to show off his pet mares, held them back 
 while he enjoyed the scene, ^he more violently 
 Cosmonette screamed, tho more I endeavored to drag 
 her on with me. For what choice had we between 
 torn and bleeding feet and a cruel death ? None what- 
 ever. By dint of muscular strength, I succeeded in 
 getting Cosmonette as far as the middle of the road. 
 But O misery of miseries ! there she fell, and lay a 
 victim of despair and those horses. However, her 
 crits had brought Katie, and she was soon in the arms 
 of that dear woman. But tiic disgrace of the situation 
 was unbearable. As a soldier, rather than suffer 
 defeat, would rush to victory at the point of the 
 
 ut)^ 
 
MEMORIES OF CHILDHOOD 
 
 17 
 
 bayonet, so I rushed to the other side of that gravel 
 road at the point of those sharp stones. It was a 
 triumph, but bought at how tremendous a cost! 
 Katie's love followed me, and made room for me in her 
 arms. When we reached cur house it was discovered 
 that Cosmonette's little pink and white feet had re- 
 ceived several bad scratches. And so had mine, but 
 in my left foot there was a deep wound which bled 
 profusely. 
 
 That night as Katie rocked us for a few moDienty 
 before we were put to bed, she whispered to me : 
 
 "Laddie, darlin', never try a rough road unless yo' 
 be well shod." 
 
 * 
 
 * 
 
 We had celebrated our seventh birthday, and were 
 spending its close in the garden with our father. And 
 here I must make a confession. At this time I had a 
 disagreeable habit of being " rough " with Cosmonette. 
 I know that I loved that little angel as I loved my 
 my own life. I used to give her nearly everything 
 I possessed, and was almost too wretched to live when 
 slie was out of my sight. I loved her hair and her 
 eyes, and her dear little hands, and listened to her 
 chatter with a sort of reverence. But it was not in 
 my manner to be gentle. I pinched her when J onl3' 
 meant to embrace her. I punched lier when I only 
 meant to caress her. I pushed her over wh«n I only 
 meant to take her with me. All tlio sorrows of this 
 period of my life resulted from my rough manner 
 
TT 
 
 18 
 
 CHAON OKR 
 
 towards my little twin for whom, I do belieye, I 
 would have died. 
 
 *' Chaon, dear, will you never learn to be gentle with 
 your sister ? " my mother would sometimes ask. Then 
 Katie would plead : 
 
 *' 'Taint in him, Mrs. Orr, 'taint in him — only in his 
 heart." And glancing at me, she would add : 
 
 " Law to goodness, no ! 'Taint in him." 
 
 We were playing in the garden, and my father was 
 watering his flowers. My mother came to the door 
 and called Cosmonette to come to her, but the little 
 girl was not inclined to obey at once. My mother 
 called the second time, and still Cosmonette stayed 
 with her flowers. When the third call came I awoke 
 to the seriousness of the situation. I thought my 
 mother the most beautiful woman in the world, and 
 was pained that no one paid any attention to her 
 words. And then Cosmonette might be punished for 
 this disobedience, might be shut up in her room and 
 not allowed to join in our half hour's romp with Papa. 
 Taking it altogether, the situation was too much for 
 me, and putting my arms around my twin I attempted 
 to drag her to her mother. Evidently my father had 
 not taken in the situation, but hearing my sister's 
 cries, he hurried towards us, and taking me by the ear, 
 led me away rather roughly, I must admit. And this 
 act was accompanied by harsh words which pierced 
 my heart like a poisoned arrow. I turned towards my 
 father and made an attempt at utterance, but anger 
 and sorrow had complete mastery of me, and with 
 flashing eye and quivering lip— and a paining ear— I 
 
 '' '1111 
 
MBM0BIE3 OF CHILDHOOD 
 
 19 
 
 crawled away around the house and sat down upon a 
 long, narrow board. And there I passed the first 
 absolutely black hour of my life. What was there now 
 to live for ? Never before had my father used such 
 words to me. I was a " cruel, wicked boy, and did not 
 deserve to have a sister." Had I misunderstood my 
 father? He never spoke harshly to any one. Why, 
 there had never lived so great a man as my father, 
 excepting Napoleon, and even he had gone away and 
 left the Empress. Where would I spend that night ? 
 Not in my father's house, for he hated me. Then 
 where? Chaon, my boy, God knows that the heart of 
 Chaon the man bleeds at the remembrance of that 
 night. 
 
 I sat upon the narrow board until the darkness closed 
 about our beautiful home. Then my father came to 
 look for me. He spoke to me, whether kindly or un- 
 kindly I cannot now tell. His voice sounded far off, 
 and upon my heart there was a heavy, cold weight 
 that made it pain. I think he spoke two or three times, 
 but I could not answer him. I had no words, and be- 
 sides, although he stood so near to me, he seemed too 
 far off to hear me. He must have said something 
 about my bed, for I followed him into the house and 
 went to my room. I had no light, but nothing could 
 have lessened my darkness. I sat upon a low chair by 
 the window ; the full September moon sailed by indif- 
 ferently. Surely Mamma and Katie would come to kiss 
 me good-night ! And I wondered if Cosmonette could 
 really go to sleep when she knew I was in sorrow. 
 When she ran the tiniest splinter under her nail I 
 
20 
 
 GHAOM OKR 
 
 illll 
 
 cried nearly all night, and the next morning I gave 
 her my largest scrap-book and both of my oranges. 
 But she was not asleep. No doubt she was crying 
 now ; indeed I believed I heard her crying. But 1 
 waited in vain. The slow, heavy hours dragged on, 
 and when midnight came everyone in the house was 
 in sleep as deep as my sorrow. 
 
 I drew aside the curtain of ray window, and began 
 to make preparations for my departure. It was the 
 work of only a few moments for I could not take any- 
 thing heavy with me. There were a few small toys, 
 three or four photographs, my two small scrap-books, 
 a silver top, three gold coins, a New Testament in 
 large print, a toy revolver, and a clock which showed 
 twelve soldiers, fully armed, every time it struck. The 
 clock and the silver top were my most valuable pos- 
 sessions. Of course the clock was worth more money, 
 but how many happy hours Cosmonette and I had 
 spent with that silver top ! Yes, I would take them 
 both. Fortunately there was a small basket in my 
 room which Mrs. Graham had unintentionally left 
 there. This, I thought, was Providential ; so I placed 
 in it my household gods, also my boots. 
 
 I left my room weeping bitterly. As I turned for a 
 last look, the moonlight fell upon two pictures at the 
 head of my bed. " Oh Papa and Mamma ! " I sobbed, 
 "you think I don't try to be gentle, but I do, I 
 do. Why wasn't I born little and sickly so I would 
 have to be gentle ? " 
 
 I went back into the room and closed the door behind 
 me, lest this fresh outburst of grief should arouse the 
 
 M 
 
MEMORIES OP CHILDHOOD 
 
 9i 
 
 household. Then having taken another farewell of my 
 room and of ray parents, I asain turned my back upon 
 them. 
 
 It was smooth sailing until I came to the door of 
 Cosmonette's room. I had not intended {?oiiig in, but 
 her face was turned towards me, and the moonlight 
 fell full upon it. I slipped in noiselessly and went to 
 her bedside. Oh, the angel ! I think I shall never 
 again see such beauty. My little heart was nearly 
 broken. Cosmonette, my sister, my twin, part of my 
 life ! To be torn from her in such a way had in it the 
 bitterness of death. I kissed her forehead again and 
 again while my tears fell upon her pillow. But she 
 should have some token of my love. She should know 
 that I was not angry because she cried when I tri^d 
 to carry her. Stooping down, I took from the basket 
 my silver top, and placed it in one of her little hands. 
 Then I kissed her again, and taking with me all that 
 I could call my own, I went down stairs, unlocked the 
 front door quietly, put on my boots, and left my 
 father's house. 
 
 Still sobbing bitterly, I reached the gate which 
 opened upon the street. This was a considerable 
 distance from the house, and I felt quite safe in wait- 
 ing there until I could deteriaine upon some course of 
 action. A beautiful elm stood by the gate and covered 
 me with its shadow. It was an act )f kindness, for 
 somehow I felt that Cosmonette must have missed me 
 by this time, and would probably soon be looking for 
 me. But no one missed me, and, as I began to feel 
 very sleepy, I urged myself on. I could not sleep 
 
r" 
 
 91 GHAOM ORR 
 
 under that tree, for it belonged to my father. But 
 there was another tree some distance up the road, 
 and the grass beneath it was soft. I would sleep there 
 for just a few moments, and then travel on and on, 
 and perhaps some farmer would take me in and let me 
 do chores for him. But I must keep from him the 
 secret that I was " cruel and wicked." 
 
 MrS' Graham slept but little that night, and as soon 
 as the morning broke sh^ went to my room. My bed 
 had not been touched, nor was I to be found in the 
 house. As at that time my mother was again given 
 to extremes of joy and grief, Katie could not tell her 
 that I was missing, nor could she awaken my father 
 without disturbing "Lovie." So she went alone in 
 search of me. She found me at sunrise, fast asleep. 
 My little clock had stopped at seventeen minutes past 
 twelve. 
 
 " Law to goodness, if the little darlin' ain't been out 
 all this chilly night ! " she cried, as she held me close 
 in her arms beside the fire which my father had built 
 in the kitchen stove. My father looked very pal«, and, 
 after giving me a warm drink, wrapped around me a 
 large woollen shawl and rocked me in his arms. There 
 were no words spoken, and I soon fell asleep. But 
 when I awoke my father's cheek was pressed close to 
 mine, and there were tears which I thought were his. 
 Was he grieved because I was so 
 all my sorrow came back upon 
 moment my father kissed me and said tenderly : 
 
 '' Ghaon, how did you suppose your mother and I 
 could live without their dear boy ? " 
 
 "wicked"? Then 
 me. But at that 
 
 !''■ ^'^ 
 
MBMORIBS OF CHILDHOOD 
 
 28 
 
 I burst into tears at his words, and putting my arms 
 around his neck I cried : 
 
 " Papa, I knowed you must have said something 
 that just sounded like ' cruel and wicked.' I'm so 
 glad Katie found me." 
 
 I looked into my father's eyes, and we were friends 
 again. 
 
 My mother never knew of this painful event. 
 
 I 
 
.iil 
 
 TV. 
 
 THE CIUCl'S. 
 
 HEN Cosmonette and I were ten years of 
 age, my mother took us down town to be 
 
 photographed. An uncle in India had writ- 
 ten asking for a likeness of the twins. I was interested 
 in the photograph enterprise, also in my mother's talks 
 upon India, which she often gave us with, an enorgj' 
 and warmth that captivated all who listened. She 
 was born in Calcutta. But on this particular day I 
 was fairly beside myself over another line of art 
 exhibited on the surface of a high board fence. Was 
 it not suggestive of Africa as well as of India? And 
 could even Cosmonette's beauty exceed that of the 
 fairy-like young girl who swung through the air with 
 the ease and grace of a bird of passage. And what 
 was the strength of my father's arm compared with 
 that of the man who held apart the jaws of an immense 
 struggling lion ? And could my mother sing like that 
 gorgeous woman who stood surrounded by a brass 
 band ? Oh ye gods ! Here was something wcvth living 
 for. 
 
 My mother urged me on, saying that Papa would be 
 waiting for us. But I feasted upon these pictures un- 
 til I could have reproduced them with my eyes shut. 
 Of course Papa and I would go to the circus, and it 
 was probable that Mamma and Cosmonette would also 
 
 -"!*»». 
 
THE CIRCUS 
 
 25 
 
 go. I talked of nothing else all the way home. Some- 
 times my mother would hint that the pictures were 
 much nicer than the circus itself, that sometimes the 
 circus turned out to be a very bad affair, and that nice 
 people did not often go. But how could my mother know 
 since she herself had never seen a circus performance*? 
 
 At dinner I informed my father of the treat in store 
 for him and me. But Katie, who had just brought my 
 mother a cup of tea, put a check upon my enthusiasm 
 by saying rather warmly : 
 
 " Law to goodness. Laddie, an' yo' surely aint han- 
 kerin' for the show ! Tut, child, tut ; it's the most 
 onspirital thing yo' could ever set your 'fections on. 
 How could you fill your little soul with light an' 
 beauty, Laddie, with light an' beauty, if yo' first filled 
 it with snakes an' elephants an' swearin' men, an' 
 hall-dressed women? You've got enough to fight 
 against already. The circus leads to a rough road, 
 an' your feet's bare yet, Laddie." 
 
 " Katie is right, Chaon," said my mother. " It is 
 not the place for you." 
 
 " And can't I go?" I enquired vehemently, as my 
 knife and fork dropped from my fingers. 
 
 * ' You might get chased by a wild crocodile, " shouted 
 Cosmonette, with more than her usual amount of 
 energy. 
 
 " But can't I go *?" I urged, turning to my father. 
 
 " Just as your mother says," he replied. 
 
 " Mamma, I can go, can't I ?" 
 
 " I would rather you would not go, Chaon," replied 
 my mother with some hesitancy. 
 
 4 '' 
 
m 
 
 26 
 
 CHAON OBR 
 
 My arms now diopped to my sides as suddenly as 
 my knife and fork had, a moment before, dropped to 
 my plate. 
 
 "There is nothing to live for now," I groaned, and 
 never in all the checkered years has life seemed to me 
 more oi a blank than it seemed at that moment < 
 
 Not long after dinner my father called me into the 
 library and told me that my mother had given her 
 consent for me to go to the circus if he would take me. 
 Finding that my grief instead of lessening was increas- 
 ing as the hour drew near, my father said : 
 
 " I will take you, my boy ; but you will promise 
 never to ask to go again ?" 
 
 I promised, and we went. I held my father's hand 
 with a tight grip as we entered the tent door, for the 
 music was loud and spirited. I was so confused with 
 the noise and the crowd that I did not see the horses 
 galloping around the ring until we had taken our 
 seats, which were on the top row but one. And then 
 what a sight I beheld! The time and tone of the 
 music were increaning, and so was the speed of the 
 horses. Like a flash of lightning each one darted be- 
 fore us, while clowns shouted "On, Prince! On, 
 Lady ! On, Lightfoot ! On, Pet ! On, Speedaway, 
 on!" And girls, light and graceful as fairies, and 
 dressed in gauze and ribbons, but touched on tiptoe 
 the backs of the horses, waved their white arms in the 
 air, bowed and smiled, then bent themselves to the 
 speed of the final lap, and with a wild rush and a 
 bang ! bang ! bang ! of horns and drums, horses, girls 
 and clowns disappeared through an opening in the 
 
 !.:lll|l|l 
 
 "-MiS, 
 
THE CIRCUS 
 
 27 
 
 tent. Then I drew a breath, a long one ; I must have 
 been livid with excitement ; my heart nearly thumped 
 itself out of my breast. 
 
 " That is rather swift motion," said my father. 
 
 •' Yes," I gasped, without taking my eyes from the 
 point at which the horses had disappeared. 
 
 My intense interest in the performance kept up un- 
 til its close. I began to realize that I was just now 
 taking my first taste of life. 
 
 My father praised the animals but said nothing 
 about the courage and skill of the performers, and 
 somehow I felt that, in an inexplicable way, I had 
 something to do with his reserve ui<oii this subject. 
 Our relations just then were not the most comlortable. 
 But our walk home was full of freedom and cheer, 
 as we rehearsed the wonderful things we had seen and 
 heard. 
 
 "Father," I said, " don't you think they must be very 
 great men and women to swing like that in the air ?" 
 
 " Great in courage, yes." 
 
 " But is there anything greater than courage ?" 
 
 " Oh yes, my boy ; goodness is greater than courage." 
 
 ' ' But can anyone be good and not have courage ? " 
 
 " Yes. That is, one can be good and not have 
 courage to perform in a circus." 
 
 " But Katie says if I was real good I would never 
 be afraid of anything. I believe those ^irls on the 
 horses must bo very good." 
 
 " But you have misunderstood Katie. 
 
 "Oh no. Papa! She says if Daniel hadn't been a 
 good man he would have been afraid of the lions, and 
 
I ''I 
 
 I 
 
 1 '1 
 
 |; iili 
 
 28 
 
 CFFAON ORR 
 
 that if ho had been afraid they would have eaten him 
 up. Now there must be something good about these 
 circus folks or they could not live all the time with 
 these animals. Musn't there be something good in 
 tliem ?•' 
 
 " Not necessarily. As a rule, man who live for 
 nothing but to increase their physical strength are 
 very bad men." 
 
 " But wouldn't you rather be real strong than good? 
 Then if you were real strong you could just make 
 yourself be good, couldn't you, father?" 
 
 " No one can make us good but God." 
 
 " Who makes us strong, then ?" 
 
 "God does." 
 
 " Then it can't be w^icked to be strong. And does 
 God make us have courage too ? 
 
 ''Yes." 
 
 "Then didn't He give courage to the girls on the 
 horses ?" 
 
 " Yes, Chaon. But I don't think he meant them to 
 use it in that way." 
 
 " They looked beautiful, and Katie says I must till 
 my soul with light and beauty so that I'll be spirital." 
 
 "Spiritual, Chaon, spiritual." 
 
 " Spiritual. But, Papa, didn't they look beautiful ?" 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " Beauty and courage and strength ! I believe if I 
 had all them I'd be good." 
 
 Here my father took my hand in his, by which act 
 ho gave notice that lie wished our communication to 
 be a silent one. Thus we reached our home. 
 
 iiniiil!: 
 
 mk 
 
THE f'TRCUS 
 
 29 
 
 But the circvis had made a deep impression on my 
 mind- I wished the people would change its name, 
 nob call it circus, hut call it something that did not 
 imply any wickedness. My father had failed to con- 
 vince rao of tbo total depravity of the performers. And 
 then the " swiit motion," as my father called it. Oh, 
 it was glorious ! My heart gave a wild throb at every 
 remembrance of it. From that day my pulse beat 
 with increasing vigor. For a moment the great cur- 
 tain hanging before life had been drawn aside, and I 
 had seen it in its activity, had seen it at fever heat, 
 and all my soul had leaped to meet it. 
 
'^:i;i 
 
 as 
 
 ml 
 
 I 
 
 i" :i ffi 
 
 JMi II 
 
 V. 
 
 IN THE METROPOLIS. 
 
 1 
 
 HIS psychological tumult was still at its height 
 when my parents arranged to take Cosmonette 
 
 and me to the metropolis. We lived in a small 
 but enterprising city where we had many advantages 
 in the line of art and literature, at the same time enjoy- 
 ing the rural beauty of our home. My mother's 
 garden was as necessary to her happiness as were her 
 books of poems, or as were my father's flute and 'cello 
 to his happiness. But for some years my parents had 
 gone annually to one of the larger citiej. They 
 always came back vehemently enthusiastic. My 
 mother was radiant for weeks after these visits. It 
 was therefore with the keenest delight that we received 
 the news of the proposed trip. Even the circus, for a 
 few moments, was forgotten. I was to see the great 
 city. 
 
 Wo reached the metropolis at nightfall. When we 
 stepped from the car my mother took Cosmonette's 
 hand and my father took mine. The pushing of the 
 crowd smothered me, and the shouting of the cabmen 
 bewildered me. I glanced nervously at Cosmonette : 
 she was pale but calm. (There was something heaven- 
 ly in my sister's habitual repose ; but it had begun to 
 be exasperating to me. I had felt it so ever since the 
 circus.) 
 
 "■*MA4 
 
 PMpaPi 
 
IN THE METROPOLIS 
 
 81 
 
 We took an open carriage, and drove down a 
 beautiful avenue, crossing thr<je or four short busy 
 streets. I had just remarked that this city was a 
 good deal like our own when, turning the corner, I 
 found myself in a blaze of light and a whirl of activity 
 that fairly took away my breath. 
 
 "How about this?" asked my father. I made no 
 reply, but glanced excitedly from one side of the street 
 to the other, wondering how long such an extreme 
 condition of things could continue. Then the light 
 became more dazzling, the crowd greater, and the 
 movement more accelerated. It was glitter, glitter, 
 rush, rush, hum, buzz, with now a crash and a roar 
 from somewhere, while our horses pranced proudly to 
 the heart-throb of the great city. 
 
 The following day we visited many wonderful places, 
 and I remember sitting down in the Art Gallery and 
 holding; my hands over my eyes to rest them. In room 
 after room, hall after hall, wherever the eye turned it 
 met pictures, pictures, pictures, all the work of a 
 master-hand. In the subdued light of that November 
 afternoon such surroundings had in them an enchant- 
 ment irresistible. Mj' parents walked together and 
 talked of " perspective," " centre of vision," and 
 "vanishing point," and I have no doubt but they 
 communed with the men who had given to them 
 whatever of their souls could thus be detained on earth. 
 The pictures certainly had something "spiritual" in 
 them. Cosmonette and I walked on tiptoe. I felt very 
 strange ; it all seemed so solemn. And then sometimes 
 my eye would full upon a picture that was only a bit 
 
82 
 
 OHAON ORR 
 
 of coloring witL a curved line here and there ; but as I 
 would watch it it would assume definite proportions, 
 and its meaning would be plain to even me. It was all 
 more wonderful and more beautiful than the circus. 
 But I could not help wishing that the pictures had a 
 voice and motion. I soon began to bo depressed, and 
 left the Gallery both regretfully and gladly. 
 
 We reached the zenith of our happiness at night. 
 During the day my mother had said to us : 
 
 ''Children, I want you to know that beauty is the 
 most accommodating thing in the world. It can give 
 to itself the smallest possible dimensions, so that it can 
 fit into little souls like yours, or it can extend itself to 
 fill larger souls like your father's and mine. Now 
 to-night we are going to take you to the Music Hall to 
 hear Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony. It is his lightest 
 symphony, but will be played by an orchestra of one 
 hundred and eighteen pieces." 
 
 One hundred and eighteen pieces ! And there were 
 only fifteen at the circus and that music was almost too 
 much for me. 
 
 " You have never heard music like that which you 
 will hear to-night," continued my mother, " and we 
 want you to listen carefully. Pastoral is something 
 that describes rural life, that is, life in the country." 
 
 The solemnity of the Art Gallery was nothing 
 compared with that of the Music Hall as we followed 
 the ush3r to our seats. It was a sort of court solemnity, 
 for my father had a princely bearing, and my mother 
 looked like a queen in a pale blue silk gown that 
 enhanced the beauty of the soft brown coil upon her 
 
 ""• •'ii n i l i iWi ii (tt1MiiWMim i il| i i |ii 
 
m 
 
 IN THE MBTROPOLIS 
 
 88 
 
 shapely head. Cosmonette wore a whiUy dress and had 
 bows of pink ribbons upon her shoulders. I glanced at 
 the four of us as we sat there waiting for tho perform- 
 ance to begin, and i do not know that I have ever lived 
 a more perfectly rounded-out moment. The musicians 
 came in and took their places. Then the conductor 
 appeared and every one applauded. Oh, how my heart 
 did thump against my little velvet waistcoat ! 
 
 Nothing is lost in the world of matter or of mind. 
 The stone crushed to powder, the leaf turned to decay, 
 the beam burned to ashes, are as much a part of the 
 material world as before they changed their form . And 
 at thirty-five a man may live again the life lived at ten 
 or at twelve. '' The thoughts of youth are long, long 
 thoughts." Many children against whom we brush as 
 aG;ainst " only children," aspire, with intense longing, 
 to a life of which the average man or woman has no 
 conception. Then when come the supreme momenta of 
 childhood— moments which God sends to keep the little 
 [overcharged hearts from breaking— life is more than 
 full and lends its surplus to the coming years. So I, 
 a man with half my life behind me, live again the life 
 lived in the Music Hall of the metropolis. As history 
 repeats itself without the aid of the historian, so that 
 life repeats itself even while memory sleeps. Thus is 
 the child father to the man ; and he bids the man 
 speak of the things which his untutored tongue once 
 [Tainly strove to utter. 
 
 Step by step the music led us along paths of trans- 
 cendent beauty. The effusion of sunlight, golden and 
 [warm, the balm of the breeze, thb gentle moving of 
 
 ii 
 
I 
 
 84 
 
 CHAON ORR 
 
 ; li 
 
 
 grasses, the bending of trees, the babbling of brooks, 
 the lowing of cattle, the singing of birds, all came to us 
 on waves of harmony that brought also the fragrance 
 of flowers and the scent of newly mown hay. Then 
 the harmoiiies went throTigh a transition, bringing us 
 a moonlight scene, sombre and still. But the bright- 
 ness soon returned, and a bird broke into raptuorus 
 singing. This was not all. The instruments retained 
 their individuality. We had the bird, but we had also | 
 the violin and flute. We had the violin and flute, but 
 we had also the notes which they gave us. The tone I 
 was theirs, the note was the master's. So the office of 
 descriptive music is three-fold. Certainly I could not 
 analyze it then, but I felt a three-fold influence, for I 
 turned my ear to hear the singing of the bird, then 
 moved a little nearer my father that I might see the 
 flute, then glanced over my shoulder nervously, hall| 
 expecting to encounter the shade of Beethoven. 
 
 I remembered that Katie often talked about my soul, I 
 but I seemed then to be all soul, made of a million 
 fibres through and around which the music played 
 wildly and ecstatically, striking now and then a full 
 harmonious chord, the vibration of which set to 
 trembling every string. Had I been asleep all the 
 years and was just now awakened? Or was Chaon 
 dead, Chaon the " cruel," the " wicked," and was a 
 new Chaon to be born from the music to grow and be | 
 great? Katie once said that we could be made alii 
 new. 
 
 " Yes, Laddie darlin'," she urged, *' we can be made] 
 over intirely, an' can walk the earth spirts, Laddie, 
 
IN THB MBTROPOLIS. 
 
 35 
 
 spirts, only burdened with flesh iin' bones. But they 
 aint nothin', my boy, tliey aint uothin', for the spirt 
 is mightier 'n all flesh, an' it lives in the beautiful 
 places o' the universe, or it travels about an' comes 
 back home in no time. Lig:htnin' is quick, but it aint 
 nothin' to the spirt. An' there's things to help us be 
 spirital— all the beautiful things in God's earth, the 
 flowers an' grass an' trees an' birds an' rivers an' sun 
 an' moon an' stars an' sky an' sea. An' then lovin', 
 Laddie, lovin' an' laughin' an' speakin' gentle, an' 
 sayin' sweet verses, an' singin' an' listenin' to beautiful 
 music." 
 
 It was not until the music had ended, and my father 
 had helped me to my feet that I realized that bones and 
 flesh were accompaniments of Chaon Orr, old or new. 
 When we were driving to our hotel my mother 
 asked me how I had enjoyed the music. I replied that 
 I believed I had something to live for now besides the 
 circus. Cosmonette laughed at this, and then enter- 
 tained us with her merry chatter until our drive ended. 
 She was in an ecstacy of delight, and her animation 
 and evident appreciation of the music were to me the 
 keynote of a new life song. 
 
ilffllRII 
 
 VI. 
 
 PROBLBMS. 
 
 HAVE already recorded the fact that the habitual 
 repose of my twin exasperated me at times. 
 
 There may have been several reasons for this. In 
 the lirst place I was conscious that Cosmonette did not 
 sympathize with me in my ambition to, some day, be a 
 circus performer, although, both as regards skill and 
 superior mental and spiritual attainment, I was to be 
 such a performer as the world had never yet seen. I 
 also had an idea that my parents discussed with 
 Cosmonette my darling project, and that for some 
 reason her placidity was a wilful contrast to the 
 vehemency of my nature. But Katie, dear soul ! 
 helped me out a little when she said' "Laddie, it's 
 wrong in yo' to feel so towards Gosie. She couldn't 
 help bein' your twin, an' if before yo' was both horned 
 she got too much o' the quiet an' you got too much o' 
 the onrest that Providence sent to be equally distribited 
 between yo' both, she aint to blame— neither is your 
 mother, as some folks would argue. It's one o' them 
 misunderstandable things in life that no one knows 
 anythin' about. But law to goodness ! it's all the 
 same. Laddie, for you're both one any way. There's 
 somethin' awful spirital in bein' twins." 
 
 The germ of the new life which I had received in the 
 Music Hall of the metropolis destroyed the uncomfort- 
 
PROBLEMS 
 
 87 
 
 able feeling which I had had towards Cogmonette. I 
 loved her before ; loved her tenderly, loved her 
 unselfishly, but there had been a gulf between us 
 which was now bridged. If all was true that Katie 
 had said, that mysterious spiritual condition to which 
 I aspired really belonged to my nature, only it was 
 exhibited in the part of me known as Cosmonette. 
 This was purely accidental. Cosmonette could in no 
 way be blamed for it, and my mother was equally free 
 from all responsibility. I arrived at these conclusions 
 after no small amount of reasoning, having on several 
 occasions gone to Katie to be reassured that Cosmonette 
 and I were really one. 
 
 My twin and I were now inseparable. We studied 
 together, walked together, played games together, 
 played the piano together and even tried to sing 
 together. But when we sang there was a harsh note 
 in the music, and that note was mine. 
 
 About a year later our parents initiated us into the 
 study of the English poets. One evening each week 
 was given to this delightful occupation, and thus was 
 bom and nourished that love of poetry which has been 
 the solace and inspiration of my life. Often before 
 beginning our reading we would sit in the twilight and 
 my father and mother would tell us sad tales of the 
 lives of those to whom we owed so much. 
 
 " And now," my mother once added, " we will have 
 a light and begin our reading. Of course we must 
 draw up an easy chair for Shelley, as he is to make one 
 of our party to-night. Shelley was accustomed to ease 
 and luxury when on this earth and we must use him 
 
il:' 
 
 88 
 
 CHAOM ORR 
 
 well. We cannot take his hand and look into his dear 
 face, but as your father reads to us his songs we can 
 shut our eyes and imagine the poet right here beside 
 us, himself telling us these wonderful things." 
 
 Here my mother quietly and gracefully wheeled near 
 the table a chair with cushions of velvet. From the 
 burning coals in the grate behind her the light streamed 
 warm and red, and a shadow fell within the chair. 
 My mother's low words of warmth and emotion, the 
 mystic twilight, and the mysterious shadow tight- 
 ened my heart strings to an almost unbearable tension. 
 Then as a babe first leaps in the womb there leaped in 
 my soul a new life conceived, long before, by the music 
 of Beethoven. I heard little of Shelley that evening. 
 A song went singing through the night that to me whs 
 sweeter than any that ever came from heart and brain 
 of the world's great ones. 
 
 The following afternoon while Katie was hanging a 
 pair of curtains at my window I ventured to ask : 
 
 ''Katie, what do you mean when you talk about 
 guardian angds ? " 
 
 " Spirts, Chaon, spirts." 
 
 " But what kind of spirits'? " 
 
 ' ' Law to goodness. Laddie ! You're purty nigh a 
 young man now, an' don't yo' know what guardian 
 angels is ? Well, all around us is air, made o' oxergeu 
 or somethin', an' in that air there's spirts. Now these 
 spirts is just like you an' me, only without bones an' 
 flesh. Did yo' never feel somethin' drawin'.yo' away 
 from some place that was terrible dangerous, an' yet 
 yo' couldn't see no one V Did yo' iiever feel somebody 
 
PR0BLBM3 
 
 39 
 
 beside 70' when yo' went an' awful lonesome walk, or 
 in the middle o' the night when a big storm was passin' 
 by ? Or did yo' never think yo' could hear a voice 
 whisperin' courage an' strength to yo', Laddie ? Law 
 to goodness ! If I set alone in the twilight like you do 
 sometimes, the hull air'd be full o* guardian angels. 
 An' if I knowed as much about the great folks that's 
 lived as you do, I'd never be lonesome, which I aint 
 very seldom anyway. Guardian angels, Laddie, ie a 
 great blessin'." 
 
 "" But don't you just imagine all this, Katie?" 
 
 " Law to goodness, no, Laddie darlin'. Many an' 
 many a time I've sat by the sea with my guardian 
 angel close beside me, an' I could hear his words an' 
 feel his presence. Low an' tender, like the quiet comin' 
 in 0' the tide, was the voice. I can't tell you what it 
 said. Laddie, it was fur my e'^r alone, but when I'd go 
 away all my burden would be gone. An' forever an' 
 forever, Laddie, until the sea gives up its dead, will my 
 guardian angels be by me. An' then when the gre«rt 
 God opens the beautiful gates o' the celestial city to let 
 me in, I'll find my guardian angel there, for then I 
 too 'ill be spirtalized. Laddie, spirtalized." 
 
 *' Katie, your husband and your little girl are dead ; 
 perhaps they are your guardian angels. But how can 
 I have any ? " 
 
 " Everybody that's tryin' to be spirital has guardian 
 angels. These angels is sort 0' servants o' the kind God 
 vho wants us to be happy an' useful, an' He tells 'em 
 to stay right by us an' speak to as when we most need 
 it. Folks put<j altogether too much 'pendence on the 
 
m 
 
 i.-i 
 
 
 iiniliii! ' 
 
 40 
 
 GHAOM ORR 
 
 things we see and tech. It's the spirt, Laddie, that 
 makes life what it is. When you find anybody 
 hankerin' for the onvisible take him to your heart, an' 
 yet remember that the Prince o' darkness is a spirt. 
 Take care, Laddie." 
 
 Katie left me, and I sat alone in my room. Was it, 
 then, that my guardian angel had visited me the 
 evening before in the twilight ? Katie was illiterate, 
 but she was not ignorant. My r^'other called her a 
 wise woman, and I was inclined to believe what she 
 had just told me. If this were not so, how could I 
 account for my strange experience of the previous 
 evening ? 
 
 Two years and a half from the date of that memor- 
 able circus, a new minister came to the congregation 
 to which our family belonged. By this time I had 
 given up all thought of being a circus performer, but I 
 had not given up the belief that physica' ^ trength and 
 courage engender nobility, and goodn&u, e7en spirit- 
 uality. I became deeply interested in atlil-t'c sports, 
 and the blood coursed proudly as well as vigorously 
 through my veins. Feeling more certain of my ground 
 regarding the office of physical strength and courage, 
 I now discussed the subject with my parents and 
 sister, all of whom denounced my theory as earnestly 
 as did Katie. Cosmonette displayed but little origin- 
 ality in her arguments, but now and then she attacked 
 my theory with a scripture quotation which, for the 
 
PROBLBMS 
 
 at 
 
 moment, sent it whirling away out of my sight. 
 Although this belief was, in a way, a comfort to me, 
 I experienced much perplexity at this time, having 
 great respect for the opinion of my parents and Mrs. 
 Graham. Besides this, of late Cosmonette had 
 exhibited a striking individuality, which rather shook 
 my faith in the belief of ouv oneness. Then, too, the 
 guardian angel question was a deep one. I had now an 
 unfaltering belief in guardian angels, and valued 
 Katie's opinion upon any subject ; but I could not 
 harmonize her teaching of guardian angels with her 
 teaching that '' we are no more'n a fly or sunbeam of 
 ourselves, weak as a drop o' water, an' goin' out instant 
 like a snuffed out candle." 
 
 We all went to church to hear the new minister- 
 rather, the others went for that purpose; I went to 
 hear the music, thus feeding afresh the new life born 
 when Shelley came into the easy chair in our library. 
 
 The minister took his text from the Epistle to the 
 Romans : 
 
 *' For to be carnally minded is death ; but to be 
 spiritually minded is life and peace." 
 
 I followed the minister with deepest interest until he 
 said: 
 
 " There is not an impulse of your unregenerate heart 
 —which by nature is carnal— but would do violence to 
 this new life ; nor have you an intellectual faculty nor 
 any physical strength which, unsanctified, does not 
 war with the life which is not of the flesh but of the 
 spirit." 
 
 This was a bold, merciless, unprovoked and unpar* 
 
if 
 
 
 18 CHAON ORR 
 
 donable attack upon the yery heart of my existence. 
 I left the church unhappy and rebellious, and Katie 
 said, on the way home : 
 
 ** Laddie, my heart aches for yo'. Your feet's bare 
 yet." 
 
 i'is;p 1 
 mm 
 
VII. 
 
 ALFRED GORLEY. 
 
 Ol^LEY and I owed our friendship to one of the 
 many blunders of my first year at college. A 
 sophomore had given two or three fresh- 
 men a little more rough play than we felt ourselves 
 entitled to, and I was appointed to interview the 
 gentleman and to report upon his attitude towards us, 
 and upon the outlook for the future. We would then 
 decide upon the proper course to pursue in the matter. 
 
 It was late in an afternoon of the fall term when I 
 prepared myself for this important interview. After 
 giving considerable care to my toilet, I assumed a 
 dignified and formidable bearing, and started for 
 number nineteen, upper hall. I rapped violently, and 
 immediately heard a languid but musical, *' Come in ! " 
 The voice did not sound like Bentley's, but perhaps 
 he had been asleep. Wishing to interview the crimi- 
 nal in the hall and not in his own room, I rapped 
 again. 
 
 *• Come in, you hard crust of courtesy ! What more 
 do you want ? " 
 
 "I want you!" I exclaimed, throwing open the 
 door, and standing motionless and dark. But great 
 was my surprise to find myself face to face with the 
 m«st popular freshman in the college, known among 
 the boys as " Alfred the Great." 
 
 » M 
 
' I • i 
 
 
 , 'ti 
 
 U 
 
 GHAON ORR 
 
 " By Jove, Corley ! " I cried, " This is not Bentley's 
 room ? " 
 
 *' Twenty-nine, Orr. This is nineteen." 
 
 I apologized as handsomely as my surprise and 
 humiliation would allow. Corley soon put me at my 
 ease, and urged me to come in. The room was richly 
 furnished and here and there were artistic touches 
 which showed the occupant to be a man of culture. 
 Corley offered me a chair, then resumed his seat upon 
 the sofa and picked up the book he had reluctantly, no 
 doubt, thrown down. A small bouquet of hot-house 
 flowers gave their fragrance generously, as long rays 
 of light from the sinking sun fell upon them. A few 
 valuable pictures adorned the walls. 
 
 Although I was interested in the appointments of 
 the room, my deepest interest centred in its occupant. 
 I saw before me a young man with a handsome 
 countenance, a magnificent physique, but not above 
 the average in either height or weight ; a noble bearing 
 and a voice as sweet as music far out on a moonlit 
 bay. Katie's words, " Take him to your heart," came 
 btick to me, and I answered mentally, " I will." 
 
 "I think you are foolish, Orr," said Corley, "to 
 trouble yourself about this affair with Bentley. I 
 don't mind the other fellows going into it, but I was 
 sorry to hear your name mentioned in connection with 
 the business." 
 
 '• Why should you be sorry ? " I enquired. 
 
 " Well, there are bussinesses that suit your cloth 
 better than knocking a man out in the first round. 
 Perhaps I know you better than you know yourself. 
 
>i"i 
 
 ALFRED GORLET 
 
 46 
 
 I once had a pet swan, a beautiful bird, as white as 
 snow. It followed a flock of meaner birds into a 
 muddy pond. I washed ^i, and it was white ae:ain. 
 But after that I loved it less for having once seen it 
 soiled." 
 
 " A little manly exercise now and then can do no 
 one harm." 
 
 " Manly exercise is all right, but pummelling a fellow 
 until he cries for mercy is all wrong. You are a man 
 of literary t'^.ste, Orr, and do you think you would 
 remember such sport with pleasure when sitting alone 
 with your Goethe or Shakespeare or Scott? Come 
 with me for a canter to-morrow morning and I will 
 give you some manly exercise in which even Schiller 
 would not have blushed to join." 
 
 Corley had aimed well. He hit his mark with :Qrst 
 fire. At the mention of the poets my tongue was loos- 
 ened, and in less than half an hour Alfred Corley knew 
 more of Chaon Orr than Chaon Orr knew of himself. 
 
 After a moment's silence, Corley said, indifferently : 
 
 " When you rapped I was having a quiet hour with 
 my friend Shelley." 
 
 At these words my heart gave a great leap that 
 broiight a deeper crimson to my cheeks. Coiiey must 
 have marked my emotion, for ho gazed into my face 
 eagerly as he said : 
 
 " You read Shelley, then ? " 
 
 I replied that if there was any inspiration in my life 
 I owed it to this poet, at which words Corley rose and 
 offered me his hand. I shook it warmly. Thus was 
 bom our friendship. 
 
 I 
 
Wf 
 
 l!i' 
 
 46 
 
 CHAON ORR 
 
 1 1 i)i{< 
 
 m 
 
 At the close of the year I inyited Corley to spend 
 part of the long vacation with me. We reached my 
 home at midnight. Cosmonette had arrived the day 
 before, and there was no limit to our joy at this 
 meeting. I wag prepared to see some improvement in 
 my sister's general appearance, but I did not dream 
 that the beauty of her face could ever be enhanced. 
 She had gone to college, the year before, a sweet, 
 sensitive girl of sixtev^n ; she had now returned to her 
 home an elegant, queenly young woman *of seventeen, 
 more beautiful than I had ever seen her, excepting the 
 night ten years before when my tears fell with the 
 moonlight upon her pillow. When she hesird my voice 
 in the hall where we had been met by Father and 
 Mother, she came from the library like a burst of 
 sunlight. I held her in my arms and could have wept 
 for love of her. 
 
 " Cosmonette, my twin, my twin ! " I cried, »s I 
 placed her at arm's length, regardless of her evident 
 emotion. How like my mother she was growing ! She 
 wore a dress of pink muslin that lent its tint to her 
 cheek. Her hair was darker than my mother's and her 
 eyes, instead of being deep blue, were brown. 
 
 "How long are you going to hold me here?" she 
 cried, with a mixture of smiles and tears. 
 
 " Until I am quite sure that I have my twin," I 
 answered, then led her to the sofa. We sat side by 
 side, and my mother fairly beamed her joy. I have 
 never forgotten my mother's appearance in the Music 
 Hall of the metropolis, but her charms of that evening 
 were as moonlight to sunlight compared with those of 
 
ALFRED C0RLB7 
 
 4T 
 
 the night when Cosmonette and I returned from our 
 first year at College. Father and Alfred talked 
 together and as I glanced from mother and Cosmonette 
 to them, my heart was rather uncomfortably full of 
 tender and fervent emotions. 
 
 Then Katie came, loving, '' spirital " Katie. 
 
 "Laddie! Laddie! " she cried, "how my heart's 
 wearied for yo' both. An' do yo' find the road rough 
 or smooth, darlin' ? " 
 
 " Smooth, Katie, smooth," I answered, " with 
 flowers on both sides." 
 
 A friendship between Cosmonette and the organist 
 of the church which we attended had existed for some 
 time. This gentleman was eight years older than my 
 sister but seemed to miss nothing in her companionship, 
 is my parents did not disapprove of the iiiendship, 
 Mr. Clairmont was a daily visitor at ray father's house 
 at the time of which I am writing. 
 
 Corley was my senior by three years, and by con- 
 siderably more than that in leneth of experience. 
 
 At the outset, Corley and Mr. Clairmont met 
 cordially enough, but before their first day of 
 intercourse had ended there was an evident antagonism 
 between them. 
 
 " I say, Chaon, this won't do," exclaimed my friend 
 at night as he threw his slippers across his room and 
 lodged them in the slipper case with a skill unequalled 
 by the most adroit circus performer. 
 
 " This won't do. Clairmont and I must be friends." 
 
 " Yes, or kill our summer's pleasure," I replied. 
 
 " We must be friends. Leave it to me." 
 
48 
 
 CHAON OBR 
 
 1:!: 
 
 And I left it to him. 
 
 The apparent restraint between Corley and the 
 musician gradually wore away, and at the close of the 
 first month we were launched for smooth and swift 
 sailing. Every day was one of most genuine pleasure. 
 From the social intercourse that was so delightful to 
 us all, enhanced by a common love of music and poetry, 
 we turned to the more exhilarating pleasures of riding 
 and rowing. When my father could leave his office 
 he and my mother joined us, 
 
 I remember one evening in particular when Mr. 
 Clairmont was at his best. He played the music of 
 Schubert and Beethoven as I have never heard it 
 played since, and when he sang " Dein istmein Herz " 
 (Ungeduld) Corley whispered to me, "The fellow is 
 inspired." I can hear Clairmont's voice even to-day. 
 The long years have stolen much, but a thousand 
 years could not rob me of the memory of that night. 
 Cosmonette sat by the piano, and the rich blood came 
 and went in her cheek with the rise and fall of that 
 wonderful voice. All the cords that bound us to things 
 earthly were snapped. We followed our leader 
 through a pathless realm of light, beauty, love and 
 truth, and there our spirits met and communed. 
 Clairmont sang again and again. I have never heard 
 a voice like his, so tender, so pathetic, so full of love 
 and purity and peace. When he had finished I felt 
 towards him a sort of reverence, and I think I loved 
 Corley less just then. But when my friend spoke he 
 was again the one man necessary to my noblest and 
 largest life. 
 
ALFRBD CORLEY 
 
 "Mr. Clairmont," he said, *' you not only loosed us 
 from the earth, but you loosed us from ourselves." 
 
 " Yon mean that Schubert did this," replied the 
 musician. 
 
 " Schubert gave you the means of flight," answered 
 Corley, " but it was your soul that we followed." 
 
 Mrs. Graham had been asked to come in and hear 
 the music, and I expected a response from her at this 
 point. But she was silent. She had looked away from 
 Corley while he was speaking. 
 
 That night my friend invited me into his room. 
 Offering me a chair he said : 
 
 '* Clairmont is a genius ; and, by Jove, what a voice ! 
 But it is a sorrowful thing, Chaon, when nature 
 endows one of her children so richly but foi^ets the 
 one gift which, combined with those she has bestowed, 
 could make of him a god. Clairmont is blind, and to 
 me it is a painful thought that he must go groping, 
 groping through all the years." 
 
 I replied that my parents and Cosmonette had 
 known him a long time and had never yet discovered 
 the misfortune to which my friend referred. 
 
 " That may be, Orr ; you know wc never can see the 
 failings of those whom we love. And yet 'failings' 
 is not the word to use in this connection. Clairmont's 
 blindness, or bondage, as I would rather term it, affects 
 himself only. But it is a bondage from which he has 
 neither the strength nor the courage to free himself. 
 You and I could burst such fetters, but I fear that he 
 is powerless to do this. Spirituality, Chaon, is simply 
 another word for freedom, and Mr. Clairmont has yet 
 
i:-l 
 
 50 
 
 CHAOM ORB 
 
 i! 
 
 a few steps to take before he finds himself in that 
 unbounded realm." 
 
 ''But people may haye different conceptions of 
 freedom," I urged. 
 
 " Yes, as a blind man and one who can see may 
 have different conceptions of light," was the answer. 
 '* The truth is, Chaon, that for more than eighteen 
 hundred years the world has been in bondage. Now 
 and then there has lived a mighty one who has not 
 only burst th49 fetters that would bind his own soul, 
 but has given his life to the emancipation of his 
 fellows. Such men have died ur lored, but to you 
 and to me it is given to live in light which the 
 years cannot obliterate— a light once shed upon this 
 dark world by their illuminated souls. I do not say 
 that Clairmont cannot follow such men in the strength 
 and beauty of their thought, cannot revel in the richness 
 of their imagery. But I do say that he has not the 
 strength to grasp their noblest truths, nor the courage 
 to apply those truths in his own life. Strength and 
 courage, Chaon, are what we want. They are the 
 parents of that light which is the estate of high-bom 
 spirits. Without them, entire spirituality is impos- 
 sible." 
 
 I went to my room that night with a heavy heart* 
 Corley's words burned unto my brain and sleep 
 forsook me. 
 
 Cosmonette had said in one of her letters to me : 
 
 '' To be conscious of moral strength, to be conscious 
 of intellectual growth, to feel the wings of the soul 
 gradually unfolding for her unfettered flight beyond 
 
ALFRBD CORLBT 
 
 51 
 
 the reach of prisoni and of bonds— this is to be great." 
 Was Corley right, then ? 
 
 All that Katie and Cosmonette had taught me, as 
 well as all that my own heart said, was in harmony 
 with much of Corley's teaching. And yet I felt that 
 the difference between the two theories was such as to 
 make my choice of my friend's position danererous to 
 my happiness at least. Then Mr. Clairmont had said 
 to Corley only the week before : 
 
 ** A light that is liable to go out at any moment and 
 leave one in darkness is a poor guide. One might 
 better grope along carefully and become accustomed to 
 the darkness. But this is not necessary. Eighteen 
 hundred years ago the Light of the world was sent to 
 us, and it shines to-day as brightly as ever. The 
 powers of darkness cannot extinguish it, nor can the 
 philosophical flashes of the worldly-wise hide its 
 lustre." 
 
 After pondering over the situation for an hour, I 
 decided that I could maintain a middle ground. There 
 was much in Corley's belief that I felt to be erroneous, 
 but could I not enjoy, and profit by, his companion- 
 ship without accepting his theory? His culture 
 delighted me, and his strength and ' brilliancy held me 
 spell-bound. Friends need not be of the same opinion 
 on every point, and Corley could think as he liked — 
 a privilege which I would also claim for myself. 
 
 And then I needed Corley's love. Two years before 
 when Mr. Clairmont began to show an interest in 
 Cosmonette, I had many a lone and bitter struggle. 
 She was not only my sister, but my twin, part of my 
 
it! 
 1% 
 
 e>2 
 
 CBAOM OKE 
 
 life, and I looked upon the musician as an unpardon- 
 able intruder. But by the g;race and gentleness of his 
 manner, and by the nobility of his ?ife, he soon won 
 my regard, and I considered him my own as well as 
 Cosmonette's friend. But we had drifted apart some- 
 what during the past year, and he andCosmonette had 
 drifted somewhat closer together. I observed this 
 sorrowfully ; and yet who was better calculated to 
 make my sister happy than this prince of men whose 
 ways were gentle and whose words were wise. Thank 
 God for the high* bom spirits among us! Here and 
 there we find them, souls a& white as snow, drawing 
 to themselves purity-loving ones, as the sunbeam 
 draws the flower. I needed Corley's love, and 
 although there was, in my mind, some doubt as to the 
 genuineness of Alfred's so-called freedom, by virtue of 
 his pronounced personality he stayed by my side, and 
 I put my hand in his. 
 
VIII. 
 
 ENTANGLBMBNT. 
 
 URING the winter following my return to 
 college I received a letter from Mr. Clairmont 
 in which he said : 
 
 *' There are two lives before you, Chaon, both 
 spiritual. But 'spiritual' has a two-fold meaning. 
 Do not forget that your friend uses it in the sense of 
 the intellectual, of the ideal, while the truly spiritual 
 life is that of the soul in which abides the Holy Spirit. 
 This spiritual life in no way limits norls antagonistic 
 to the ideal ; but the mistake is fatal when the purely 
 intellectual is given the place of the purely spiritual." 
 
 Not many days passed before I received from 
 Cosmonette a letter along tl j same line, but expressing 
 her anxiety concerning my spiritual welfare. She 
 said : 
 
 "Tour last letter has made me very unhappy. 
 Surely, Chaon, we two who have come thus far on 
 life's journey side by side, hand in hand, heart to 
 hoart, can have no secrets from each other. Then do 
 not write so mysteriously. Tell me plainly what you 
 believe. Your soul is immortal, and you want a sure 
 foundation upon which to rest your hope. And then I 
 cannot bear the thought of being separated from you 
 by such a gulf. Just as the gates of life are opening 
 wide to us you leave me, to walk hand in hand with 
 
 ^\ 
 
54 
 
 CHAOM ORR 
 
 a man who does not love your soul, but would have 
 you ignore its needs for the gratification of an intellect- 
 ual passion. Come back to me, Chaon, my twin, and 
 let us be one in the simple faith which has made Katie 
 and Mr. Clairmont so dear to us. And please do not 
 write anything of this to Father and Mother. You 
 know they have never talked much about spiritual 
 things— I mean ' spiritual ' as Mr. Clairmont and I 
 understand it — but they have always had a reverence 
 for the Holy Book, and a letter such as you wrote to 
 me would give them pain. Poor Katie ! How grey 
 she got while we were away ! Mother says she talks 
 about us all the time, and that whenever she dusts that 
 old-fashioned bureau ia her room she turns over an 
 old pair of shoes that you once we're and weeps as she 
 says : ' My poor darlin' Laddie ! I wonder if his feet's 
 bare yet.' " 
 
 Coming at a time when my thoughts were making 
 an excursion to my home, this letter unmanned me to 
 some extent. I turned the key in my door and went 
 back to the table with the determination to be myself 
 again. What did I care for the *' philosophical 
 flashes "—as Clairmont had termed them— of all the 
 great men of the ages? My heart was hungry, so 
 hungry that it would take the love of five people to fill 
 it, and those five were my mother, my fath«r, 
 Cosmonette, Katie and Jasper. I had been a fool, 
 worse than a fool, but now I would arouse myself from 
 the drugged sleep into which I was falling. What if I 
 could not believe the straight-laced doctrines as did Cos- 
 monette! I could at least respect the faith of my fathers, 
 
 affl, .■- 
 
BNTANGLBMBNT 
 
 55 
 
 and break down the barriers which I had begun to build 
 between myself and those whom I loved as my own 
 life. Then as the twilight shades closed about me my 
 fancy carried me to the home of my love and my 
 longing where I lived again the last evening spent in 
 our parlor. Oh, how I then had hated every influence 
 that could stay the soul in its holy aspirations ! How 
 secura I had felt ! How safe from the world ! How 
 safe from myself ! 
 
 It was a cruel rap that roused me from my reverie, 
 but I opened the door to my friend, Alfred Corley. 
 
 *'Helloa, old fellow ! " he exclaimed, *' In the dark, 
 eh ? Dreaming of home and mother ? " 
 
 *' Just that," I answered, ''no more and no less. 
 But if you will stand where you are for a moment I 
 will soon have a light." 
 
 After fumbling around for Cosmonette's letter, I 
 crowded it into an already full pocket and lit a lamp. 
 
 Corley looked magnificent. He had been for a long 
 walk, and had come back against a stiff west wind, 
 and his color, which was always good, was heightened. 
 
 " It is a glorious evening," he exclaimed. " Venus is 
 dancing to a presto of fire." 
 
 He tnmed down the light, and, putting his arm 
 through mine, led me to the window- I was not 
 altogether happy, having left the home folks suddenly 
 and unceremoniously. But the star was bright. 
 
 "Some day," said Alfred, " I am going to write a 
 paper on analogies. It is a grand subject, and there is 
 little in the world of matter or of mind that it will not 
 include. 
 

 56 
 
 OHAOH OBK 
 
 Ml 
 
 " To what ifl the star analogous ? " I asked. 
 
 " To a great many things," replied Corley, " But I 
 am thinking just now about truth, giving out a 
 multiplicity of rays of light, as does the star. Truth, 
 Chaon, is the passport to life. Your friends at home, 
 for instance, like to talk of the immortality of the soul, 
 and they build their hope of their soul's eternal life 
 upon their acceptance of certain truths. I like to talk 
 of the immortality of the soul, and I build my hope of 
 my soul's eternal life upon my acceptance of certain 
 truUis. And these truths are all off-nprings of the 
 parent truth, which, as I have already said, is the 
 passport to life. Of late you have been troubled 
 because you cannot go with your sister in spiritual 
 things. But I tell you, my dear Orr, there is not the 
 least cause for any anxiety. You and Cosmonette are 
 separated by names only. Truth is supreme ; truth is 
 salvation. If you abide in its light your soul lives and 
 will live forever, no matter what name you may give 
 to the particular ray that streams to your particular 
 soul. Can yon think of Shelley's soul as dead to-day 
 because he could not give to his belief the name which 
 a Luther, a Knox, a Wesley gave to theirs ? Chaon, a 
 universe of spirits shook with tender but passionate 
 emotion when Shelley breathed to them and to the 
 world his life— a life which lives again in us to-day. 
 Truth ? It is free as air, wide as the whole world, and, 
 like the light of the star, reaches fcom heayen to earth. 
 To say, I believe this or that, is not to live. But to 
 say I believe^ is to live. You, for instance, are, like 
 myself, of a metAphysical, or rather psychological, 
 
 •■"■N,:,, 
 
BMTANaLBMEMT 
 
 turn of mind. Did you choose the mould into which 
 the Almighty cast your soul ? Then why wear out 
 your life with anxious thoughts ? You are spiritual, 
 Orr, as spiritual as was Shelley himself. Truth is 
 beautiful to you. You stay with it as a wee one stays 
 with its mother. Can your soul die while there ! 
 Never ! Now write to Gosmonette that you see and 
 accept the truth, that you love it, that you live in it." 
 
 He waited for a reply and I said : 
 
 '* You make things plain, Corley, and I believe your 
 words. But just at this moment your creed has not 
 the power to soothe and satisfy which it had when you 
 first presented it to me." 
 
 *' That is owing purely to your physical condition," 
 he answered. ''When you have had a good night's 
 sleep, the force and beauty of my creed— so you choose 
 to call it— will again assert themselves. Believe me, 
 Chaon, your soul can no more bind itself to dogmas 
 than the sea can bind itself to a shore. You must be 
 free ; then be strong, courageous, be spiritual ! Could 
 I be happy in the endless years to come if I failed to 
 find you ? Have we not stood soul to soul ? Have we 
 not together communed with all the great spirits who 
 have strayed to earth before us? And could I enjoy 
 fellowship with them in the golden hereafter if the soul 
 of my friend had lost its way? No, Chaon, no ! 
 
 * I have unlocked the golden melodies 
 
 Of your deep soul, as with a master-key, 
 
 And loosened them, and bathed myself therein.' " 
 
 Venus still danced to a presto of fire, and my heart 
 leaped with a new and a glad hope. How all things 
 
68 
 
 CHAON ORR 
 
 seemed to blend into one grand, harmonious whole! 
 The circus flashed back its brilliancy to me through 
 the long years, a brilliancy heightened by the reflected 
 light of a supreme moment. I had learned the lesson 
 it would teach me — strength and courage. Beethoven 
 and Shelley were one, and the new minister was 
 truthful. With one sweep of a master-hand, the 
 barriers between me and those whom I loved had been 
 broken down. Gratefully and lovingly I shook the 
 hand which Corley offered me, then, rising fi:om my 
 chair, I walked the floor of my room, a free man. 
 
 One year from the winter in which the star flashed 
 to ue its message, I went with my friend to spend the 
 Christmas vacation at his home. The year had been 
 one of unbounded delight. My relations to those at 
 home were dearer than ever. I carefully avoided a 
 reference to any point upon which we might difEer, and 
 wrote enthusiastically of the truth which weacoepteds 
 in common. I now missed nothing in Cosmonette 
 and believed that she missed nothing in me. I felt 
 that the heights to which I had attained, spiritually, 
 must indeed be gratifying to my father and mother as 
 well as to myself. Mr. Glairmont wrote occasionally. 
 He was always gentle and wise, but never seemed 
 quite satisfied with my position ; and to me there was 
 something holy about the man which enjoined upon 
 me silence regarding the more extreme principles 
 which were the foundation of my belief. 
 
 When Corley and I reached his home in the metropo- 
 lis, I found myself in a room rich and artistic in its 
 appointments. Alfred's mother— a widow— was superb- 
 
 3t a" i'l 
 
 •»WJ, 
 
BNTANGLBMHNT 
 
 69 
 
 ly dressed, and moved about in her p.Jatial residence 
 with the air of a duchess. 
 
 " We'll give the first two days to Mother,'' Alfred had 
 said to me on the train, as he cut the leaves of a maga- 
 zine. "Then we will arrange our own programme." 
 
 The pulse of the great city was beating above 
 normal when we rang the bell at the house of Adelaide 
 Thornton, and I was ushered into the presence of the 
 young woman whose sweet voice and charming 
 manner had, during the three days she had spent in 
 Mrs. Corley's, house opened to me another world, sung 
 of by poets and birds. 
 
 Miss Thornton was one of Corley's friends. She 
 was not particularly beautiful, but she was earnest, 
 and her influence was without limit. By an invis- 
 ible cord she held her captives, and the bonds were 
 sweet. She was too deep to be trifling, too sincere to 
 be deep, too disciplined to be sincere. There was a 
 pathos in her joy, and a triumph in her pain. She was 
 b,7 four years my senior, but tht bloom was on her 
 clieek, and the love-light in her eye. 
 
 Miss Thornton's brother invited Corley up stairs to 
 see his collection of minerals, and I was left alone with 
 Adelaide. She sang to me a melody of great beauty, 
 that reached a passionate climax but to return to the 
 tenderness with which it began. Then I rembered 
 Katie's words when she first heard Jasper Clairmont 
 sing: 
 
 " That's heavenly singin', Lovie ; spirital through 
 and through. No one can sing like that an' be o' the 
 earth, earthy.". 
 
!il';l 
 
 60 
 
 GHAON ORR 
 
 fj 
 
 As the last notes of the music died away, I rose to 
 meet Adelaide, and leading her to a seat beside my 
 own I exclaimed : 
 
 •' You sing divinely, Miss Thornton." 
 
 " No ! No ! " she cried, " don't say that. Say that 
 Schumann thought divinely, or, if you must be 
 personal, say that my singing awoke a response in 
 your heart ; then if the response be divine, I shall have 
 to accede that the music is also divine. But when 
 you say I sing divinely, you attribute to a mere 
 physical effort that which belongs to the inner life 
 alone." 
 
 *' You draw a nice distinction," I answered, "I can 
 but say that there is something divine in this moment 
 and that I owe it to you." 
 
 •• Not to me alone," she replied, earnestly, " You 
 know that students of natural philosophy tell us that 
 there can be no such thing as music until the vibrations 
 reach the drum of the ear. And I can tell you that there 
 can be no divine influence until the feeling that is 
 afloat finds its home in a responsive heart. I might 
 sing to a million men, without giving one divine note, 
 yes, and sing to them Schumann, And why is this ? 
 Mr. Corley tells me that you are a twin, then you 
 must know something of the blending, by the law of 
 nature, of soul with soul. But there is a spiritual 
 law." 
 
 She paused, and I replied— all my soul aglow with 
 the fire from her altar : > . 
 
 '* Yes, a law the power of which I recognize at this 
 moment. The knowledge is not new to me, but I 
 
BNTANOLBMBMT 
 
 61 
 
 a49sure you that its application has come into m j life 
 like the rising of an anclouded sun." 
 
 ** We are never surprised at the sun," she answered, 
 ''even when it rises brightest and warmest, nor dare 
 you express surprise that our souls speak to each other. 
 How long ago only the Great I 3art of the Universe 
 knows, your soul and mine communed together. 
 Friends we were in the ages long gone, and friends we 
 shall be in the interminable ages to come. These 
 bodies are but necessary accompaniments of the spirits 
 that sojourn here, which bodies we shall no more need 
 when we have passed into the Great Heart, there to 
 exchange our personality for a part of that Being by 
 whose will we now exist." 
 
 "But how shall we know each other under such 
 conditions ? " I asked. 
 
 '• Some people," replied Adelaide, " to whom the body 
 is all might ask, How can two spirits know each 
 other?— a question which your heart could answer. 
 And I assure you that the life to which we will one 
 day attain will be as far above the spiritual, as we 
 now understand it, as the spiritual is above the 
 material." 
 
 " The thought of losing my individuality," I replied, 
 " is shockingly painful, and the thought of you losing 
 yours is impossible. And although I readily see the 
 beauty of the exposition which you i^ave given me, I 
 find a greater inspiration in the thought of the God 
 who made heaven and earth, by whose will we shall 
 one day reach a life of transcendent joy in the unre- 
 stricted employment of intellectual faculties, than I 
 
62 
 
 CHAON ORR 
 
 find in th« thought of a Great Heart waiting to absorb 
 immortal souls. Truth is salvation, and activity is 
 heaven." 
 
 Adelaide laughed a low, musical laugh, and 
 answered : 
 
 '* Now you are selling yourself to a name. Can you 
 not see that there is really no difference between us ? 
 A difference of names is nothing to enlightened minds. 
 Truth is universal ; it cannot be bound by documents 
 dated, signed and sealed. If you live in the truth you 
 must, some day, reach the life to which you in one 
 way, and I in another, have referred. Believe me, 
 there is no difference between us." 
 
 " There shall be no difference," I cried, as I took in 
 my ovim the hand that rested upon the arm of my 
 chair. Her lips may have spoicen error, but her eyes 
 spoke truth and the tremulous warmth of her little 
 hand touched to life the love that had been waiting 
 for its birth. 
 
 Corley and Thornton came down stairs, gave us a 
 hasty glance, then went out upon the street. 
 
 I spent the evening in & transport of joy, and left the 
 house with but one purpose in my life — to love and be 
 loved by Adelaide. 
 
 As the light of the rising sun is but the promise of 
 its noontide radiance, so the love that came into my 
 life when I first met Adelaide was but a promise of the 
 love that was to make for me a world of beauty and of 
 bliss. If there had been a lack of perfect harmony 
 between us upon technical points of belief, the love 
 which knew but to attain or to die now resolved the 
 
 :J^: 
 
BNTANGLBMBNT 
 
 68 
 
 unharmonious progressions into concordant ones, and 
 we stood soul to soul. I wrote to my mother and 
 Cosmonette of my new found joy. To Cosmonette I 
 said : 
 
 " You will love Adelaide. At first I did not think 
 her beautiful, but there are now only two women in 
 the world whose beauty can compare with hers. But 
 her irresistible charm lies in her spiritual powers and 
 her intellectual graces. And to think that she was 
 sent to earth to give to a blundering fellow like me a 
 love that kings might covet ! My days are circles of 
 gold set with hours of diamonds. The future is a 
 blaze of light, and the floor of the present is paved 
 with the reflected radiance. And yet the old loves 
 remain the same — No ! not the same, they are increased 
 a million fold now that I love Adelaide and that she 
 loves me. And if there be in my arm any strength, 
 in mj" heart any courage, in my mind any light and 
 in my spirit any ideal beauty, these shall combine 
 their forces to make me worthy of the love of her 
 whom my soul adores." 
 
 And so the months passed. Save for the earnestness 
 and activity of my life I was as one in a dream. The 
 world and everything in it was gilded with glory. 
 My heart sang its life-throbs, and I breathed the 
 breath of roses. My last year at college was spent at 
 a pressure, the remembrance of which now startles 
 me. I worked day and night, making strides that 
 overlapped all records, then rushed down to the 
 metropolis to quench my spiritual thirst at the fountain- 
 h«ad of ideal life. There the spirit-world was about 
 
m' 
 
 if. 
 
 M 
 
 OHAON ORR 
 
 !) 
 
 me. A pressure from Adelaide's hand or a kiss from 
 her lips was an inspiration to my noblest and most 
 brilliant thoughts. I wrote with a passion and a 
 power that surprised even Corley. Fortune smiled 
 upon me. Fame shook hands with me, and Corley 
 said, '* Tou are on the right track, my boy." 
 
 To me Adelaide's letters were poems in prose. I 
 read them as I read the songs of Shelley and Goethe, 
 and the measures sang through my brain like incan- 
 tations. They stayed with me always, like the touch 
 of her hand and the light of her eye. She wrote : 
 
 •' To love fondly and fervently is to live forever. Is 
 not love the chief attribute of the Great Heart of the 
 Universe V If we love entirely we are already a part 
 of that Heart, and the things of this world have no 
 longer any power over us. Then commodities are 
 unreal— names only— and the true lover is beyond the 
 power "'a name. Let those who live for earth and by 
 earth be in bondage to its laws. The spiritual life is a 
 free life, and especially when love puts upon it her 
 seal is it forever as dead to earth and earthly laws." 
 
 ; 4- 
 
 
IX. 
 
 THE AWAKENING. 
 
 1 
 
 HE close of my fourth year at college found me 
 still the happiest and most earnest of men, 
 
 With a strength and a purpose far above others 
 of my years, I was ready for life, and jubilantly turned 
 from my Alma Mater to meet it. There had been no 
 abatement of my joy, no lessening of the glamour 
 which Adelaide and a consciousness of my spiritual 
 attainment had thrown about me. I lived at a fever 
 heat and loved with a strength and a courage worthy 
 of a disciple of the faith which I had embraced. 
 
 The long vacation was spent partly with Adelaide 
 and partly at home. With strength in my arm, with 
 warmth in my blood and with love in my heart, I 
 leaped from the carriage and rushed into my father's 
 house. They crowded around me,— mother, father, 
 Gosmonette, Katie and Clairmont, embraced me, 
 praised my looks, and led me into the library where a 
 profusion of roses made the air heavy with fragrance. 
 Then they congratulated me on my success, asked after 
 Miss Thornton, and Gosmonette kissed me again and 
 wound her soft arms about my neck. She was now a 
 little taller than my mother, and looked stronger than 
 when I had seen her the year before. She was earnest 
 and happy, but the habitual repose of her face was as 
 marked as when this characteristic had interfered 
 
66 
 
 CHAON ORR 
 
 with my happiness. Father and mother were a little 
 grey, but looked well ; Katie was white, and exhibited 
 her joy at my return by weeping. Jasper's smile had 
 in it something of heaven, and lent its lustre to all 
 with whom he came in contact. Those weeks at home 
 were memorable ones, and yet my happiness had in it 
 a restlessness for which I could not account. Ccs- 
 monette and Katie often talked together, and once or 
 twice I met my twin coming from her room and upon 
 her face were traces of tears. 
 
 The parting hour came too soon. Hitherto I had 
 been leaving home for college, but now I was leaving 
 it for the world. Loving and earnest counsel was 
 given me by father auu mother ; and Katie said, — 
 
 *'' All your life, Laddie darlin', so far, has been like 
 the piece Mr. Clairmont plays before he sings. Now 
 you're beginnin' the toon in earnest. You've done 
 great things at your college, an' yet I can't help feelin' 
 that yo' ain't prepared for the awful warfare before 
 yo'. There's only one preparation. Laddie, an' yo' 
 aint made it yet. It all looks bright and glitterin', for 
 the sun's high up in the heavens, but the road is awful 
 rough, an' the sharp stones 'ill cut the feet o' my 
 dai?in'. Day an' night, Laddie, day an' night I think 
 o' yo', and I pray that yc' may have your feet shod 
 wV the preparation o' the gospel o' peace." 
 
 " It is all right, Katie," I answered, as I kissed the 
 dear wrinkled face. "God is good. And then you 
 know that a truly spiritual life lies along an elevated 
 plain, where rough roads are unknown." 
 
 " Ah! yes, Laddie," she replied. " A truly spirital 
 
I ;< 
 
 TUB AWAKBNIMa 
 
 67 
 
 5d the 
 
 life is hid with Christ in Go 
 But these new fangled doctrines 
 
 an' is safe an' happy. 
 
 that shuts out the 
 
 gospel o' peace, an' teaches men that they're gods 
 themselves an' aiut got no need o' the Holy Spirt to 
 come into their hearts, I say these doctrines has 
 broken many a heart an' ruined many a soul. But 
 God be with yo', Laddie dear, an' if pray in' can help 
 yo' any Katie won't ever forget yo'." 
 
 With a dread of impending evil, I bade farewell to 
 my loved ones, holding Mother's and Cosmonette's 
 hand until the last moment. My father went with me 
 into the car. He was not a man of evident emotion, 
 but a tear stole down his cheek as he shook my hand 
 and said : 
 
 " God bless you, my boy." 
 
 I could not reply. But I was seize<l with an impulse 
 to fling away ambition, Corley, Adelaide and all, and 
 rush baek to my heart's home. Oh, fond love i Oh, 
 trup love ! Why did you not then hold me secure from 
 the glamour and from the guilt ? 
 
 A few days of unremitting literary labor brought me 
 to my old self, and I again wrote home cheerfully 
 and hopefully. Then Christmastide found me with 
 Adelaide and Corley, once more in an ecstacy of joy. 
 
 Christmas day was spent quietly in Adelaide's home. 
 Corley and I were the only guests. The curtains 
 were closed and the hours lingered where lights were 
 subdued, where music was soft and tender, where 
 flowers and wines were fragrant, where voices were 
 low, where eyes were wistful and where the air breath- 
 ed of a sensuous spirituality that held spell-bound its 
 
w 
 
 GHAON ORR 
 
 I 
 
 worshippers. Adelaide was radiant, but the rs.diance 
 was timid and tremulous, and seemed to swim before 
 my enchanted gaze. To me the day was without 
 beginning and without ending, so supreme was the 
 present moment. 
 
 ''Adelaide, my queen," I whispered, "if in that 
 other life the Great Heart offers anything dearer than 
 this, how shall my soul bear its joy ? " 
 
 In the evening Corley, Thornton, Adelaide and I, 
 being left alone, drew up our chairs for a game of 
 whist. 
 
 " I always play with Harry in this game," said 
 Adelaide, taking the seat opposite her brother. 
 
 Wine was brought to us. Flowers were arranged 
 upon a small table on either side of the one upon whicli 
 we played. The lights were turned on at full, the 
 door was closed and the play was begun. 
 
 The first rubber was scored to Corley and his partner ; 
 the second to Adelaide and Harry. 
 
 By this time the "wicked wee drap" had become 
 a pronounced factor in the evening's performance, 
 and the game was bidding fair to become a hilarious 
 one. 
 
 "A queen! A queen !" cried Corley. "Ah! dia- 
 monds are trumps ; good enough." 
 
 " We are playing whist, if you please," said Ade- 
 laide with cheerful dignity. 
 
 " If the lead is hearts, the play shall be mine," said 
 Corley, draining his glass and running his fingers 
 through his hair. " I'll wager—" 
 
 " Come ! Come! " I cried " play this hand. I too 
 
THB AWAKBNINa 
 
 ft 
 
 claim the hearts," and I brought my glass dowu upon 
 the table with much more force than dignity. 
 
 "Stay! Stay! Who played the queen?" said 
 Corley with difficult articulation. "I played the 
 queen," Harry replied. 
 
 But I covered his play with a king, and exclaimed, 
 "She's mine!" 
 
 Adelaide threw a smaller card. 
 
 " Sorry to spoil your game, Pard ; but she must be 
 mine," and Corley threw an ace and took the trick. 
 
 The ho^ blood rushed to my cheeks and springing 
 from my chair I cried : 
 
 " You infernal dog ! That play was ours." 
 
 " Ours, sweet, ours ! but not mine," and a long 
 hoarse laugh made the night hideous. 
 
 *' The queen is mine, and I can prove it," continued 
 Corley, as with a significant glance at Adelaide, he 
 drew from his pocket a package of letters neatly 
 bound together with a narrow blue ribbon. 
 
 " Gentleman, you shall have no more wine to-night," 
 exclaimed Adelaide, as she rose and took from the 
 table the decanter and glasses. She took also the 
 
 (ttftrs. 
 
 We finished the game. Corley played brilliantly by 
 dint of severe concentration. Adelaide played well. 
 Harry played stupidly. I cannot remember that I 
 played at all. Then the boys went out upon the street 
 and Adelaide sang to me and talked to me until the 
 play was forgotten, and my heart beat wildly at the 
 touch of her hand. Surely now I could speak of the 
 future. 
 

 70 
 
 OHAOM ORR 
 
 " Do you not pity those people," said Adelaide, "who 
 know nothing of the keen delights experienced by us 
 to whom only the unreal is a reality ? This day has 
 been a foretaste of the life of bliss which is the portion 
 of the truly spiritual who live beyond the reach of 
 materiality. How perfectly our souls have mingled 
 to-day ! " 
 
 "Dearest love," I cried, *' I must speak now. Give 
 me the promise of the consummation of my joy. If 
 indeed our souls are one, let the sacred word be spoken 
 which shall unite us forever." 
 
 She answered, " The word was spoken ages ago 
 when our disembodied spirits first met and mingled. 
 Can Priesthood add one element of sanctity, dear 
 heart, to love like ours ? " 
 
 •' Adelaide ! Adelaide ! " I cried. 
 
 She rose from her chair and standing before me 
 exclaimed with earnestness and emotion : 
 
 " Chaon Orr, the truly spiritual scorn to be bound 
 by laws made for base materiality." 
 
 A pang shot through my heart as if it had been 
 pierced by a dagger. Seizing her hand I cried : 
 
 " Adelaide, you will be my wife ? " 
 
 She sat beside me and said in mellow, tremulous 
 tones that chanted my soul to the very brink of hell : 
 
 " ' Wife,' darling, is a name. Love is a reality. 
 The future is before us, full, free, glorious— a future 
 of light, of liberty, of love." 
 
 " But you are testing my love," I said. " Can you 
 not see that this suspense is unbearable ? Tell me, 
 Adelaide, when will you be my wife ? " 
 
THB AWAKBNINa 
 
 71 
 
 ** Never ! " she answered, 
 
 I pushed her from me and rose to my feet. But 
 when she again spoke, low and fervently, and reached 
 her arms towards me, all my Lcp-rt cried out for her. 
 My breath came hard and hot, and my brain reeled. 
 Oh ! it is a bitter thing to dash down with one's own 
 hand a cup that is sweet even though the dregs be 
 poison, and I must have been unequal to the conflict 
 had not an Unseen Hand guided my own and saved 
 me. A flash-light from heaven revealed to me the 
 clay feet of my idol. God knows the awakening 
 almost maddened me. How long I stood there, power- 
 less to speak, to move, I know not. But my guardian 
 angels came at length and whispered helpful words. 
 Then I remembered my mother and Cosmonette and 
 Katie, pure and calm with the light of heaven about 
 them. Could I ever find them again, or would I lose 
 my way in the dense darkness which now enveloped 
 me? 
 
 I hurried out upon the street. It was deserted, but 
 the midnignt air brought strains of music that mocked 
 my misery. I was too utterly wretched to care any- 
 thing about the points of the compass, but wandered 
 on aimlessly until the sound of sleigh bells in the 
 distance warned me to turn down a by-street as a sort 
 of refuge. 
 
 The street was narrow, and the buildings upon 
 either side were small. A dim light came from a 
 curtained window farther down the street, and fell 
 upon two figures that stood in its line. I was too near 
 to retreat unnoticed, and in another moment Corley 
 
m^. 
 
 
 72 
 
 CHAON ORR 
 
 and Thornton had taken hold of my arms and were 
 
 dragging rather than leading me with them. 
 
 " You're the hoy for us," cried Corley, then joined 
 
 Thornton in singing : 
 
 " Drink, comrades, forever ; know joy while we may. 
 The red wine of night kills the grief of the day." 
 
 The hittemess of my grief had numhed my sersibili- 
 ties, and I had no inclination to tear myself from the 
 young men across whose path an adverse fate had 
 thrown me. Ten minutes passed ; then it was too late. 
 Conscience awoke, and struggled hard for the mastery, 
 but my over-strung nervous system was an easy 
 victim, and daybreak found me in a beastly state of 
 intoxication. 
 
 Over the horrors of that night I must draw a veil. 
 The darkness of the long halls, the waning light in 
 the rooms, the clouds of blue smoke penetrating to 
 every part of the building, the hideous pictures on the 
 walls, the strained eagerness of the players, their 
 fiendish fervor, their audible breathings, the deep 
 curses of the unlucky, the glitter of gold pieces that 
 flashed here and there like eyes in hell, are all fresh in 
 my memory, and will be until I die. 
 
 When I awoke the next day, I was in my bed at 
 Corley 's home. How I got there I never enquired ; 
 but my first resolution was to get away as quickly as 
 possible. I made preparations for my departure 
 as hastily as a swollen head and trembling hands 
 would allow. In the midst of these preparations, 
 Corley rapped at my door. Receiving no response he 
 entered. 
 
THB AWAKENING 
 
 78 
 
 "Helloa! Helloa !" he shouted, "you look rather 
 interesting. How do you feel ? " 
 
 "I much prefer not being questioned," I rejoined 
 rather sharply. 
 
 ** Aha ! Love and wine are not wholesome, it seems. 
 Quarrelled with my lady fair, eh ? " 
 
 His handsome face wore an expression which I had 
 never seen upon it before, and which angered mo. It 
 was with difficulty that I replied : 
 
 '* I am done with both, and please do me the kind- 
 ness never to mention either." 
 
 *' Not done with love ! " he cried, " By Jove, Orr ! 
 A man who is too cowardly to live up to his privileges 
 had better cut his throat and go to the devil at onoe." 
 
 '* I have no intention of cutting my throat," I 
 replied," and if God will help me out of this accursed 
 city, I have no intention of going to the devil." 
 
 ' ' Indeed ? " answered Corley . "My guest, I discover, 
 is a grateful one. I will leave him until he has calmed 
 himself. 
 
 I completed preparations for my departure, wrote 
 my thanks, adieux, etc., to Mrs. Corley and a line to 
 Alfred, rang for a servant, entrusted to him the 
 letters and left my friend's house forever. 
 
X. 
 
 CHAOS. 
 
 EABILY the months wore away, leaden 
 footed and grim. Again and again I remem- 
 bered Katie's words, " When our guardian 
 angels sees an' hears the things that pains 'em it must 
 be terrible to them, so spirtalized. Then they leave 
 us an' life becomes an awful blank." 
 
 When I awoke in Corley's house the day after 
 Christmas I awoke to the " awful blank " of which 
 Katie had spoken, for a hard won victory had been fol- 
 lowed by shameful defeat. 
 
 lu vain I sought for comfort in the rooiembrance of 
 ^hose whom I loved at home, in tlib thought of the 
 exercise of intellectual faculties, in the knowledge ^hat 
 a strong arm and a clear head can make life worth 
 living under almost any circumstances. My arm was 
 weak, my brain was confused, and my heart was 
 turned to stone. I was as a tree stripped of the luxuri- 
 ant foliage that had sighed to it music that soothed 
 and charmed lik« incantations. Alone and bare I stood 
 in the bleak field of life, and the sharp winds of disap- 
 pointment and remorse beat upon me mercileF>sly. 
 
 It was some months before I wrote home of my disap- 
 pointment in those whose love I had placed as a beacon 
 light in my life. And even then I referred to the ex- 
 perience in the most practical way possible, at the 
 
 ■"^•t. 
 
CHAOS 
 
 76 
 
 same time requesting my friends not to question me 
 upon the subject. From that time I received more 
 letters from home than before, but the bloom and the 
 beauty had been brushed off of life ; I felt myself 
 doomed to a loveless one. I could be equal to]a labori- 
 ous life, could bear an obscure life, could meet a suffer- 
 ing life, but to live a loveless life was worse than death. 
 I did not altogether doubt the sincerity of those who 
 wrote to me so affectionately, but I reasoned that the 
 force of habit had, probably, a good deal to do with the 
 writing of those loving messages, and I should take 
 them for just what they were worth, and no more. 
 Jasper, of course, wrote from a sense of duty, feeling 
 himself elected to look after my spiritual welfare. I 
 did not always reply to his letters. In fact, when a 
 year had passed my life was more loveless than when I 
 wandered aimlessly down the narrow street of the 
 metropolis. My father chided me for my indifference 
 to my mother who felt that the world had robbed her 
 of her only son. Cosmonette insisted that a thousand 
 Jaspers could not take my place in her affections, and 
 thp t when she did not hear from me regularly it seemed 
 as though half of herself was dead. But then Cos- 
 monette was a woman, and it was natural for women 
 to talk in that strain. They had talked like that since 
 the world was made, and unless men came to their 
 senses and closed their ears to them, they would talk 
 like that until the world came to an end, — that is, if 
 the world ever did come to an end, which event could 
 scarcely be looked for at the slow pace at which it was 
 now going. And yet Cosmonette 's face was ever be- 
 
76 
 
 CHAON ORR 
 
 foi'o me. In the twilight hour when I pushed back my 
 papers and let fall my pen, she came to me in her calm 
 beauty and with tender and cheering words. Some- 
 times her face was sad, as she spoke of the change in 
 my life. Was she not still my twin ? she would plead, 
 and could I hope to hide from her the struggles through 
 which I was passing ? When I suffered in my soul, did 
 she not too suffer, just as we used to experience each 
 other's physical pain ? When would I come home and 
 be my If again? There was love everywhere, the 
 world \\ as full of it, then why did I live in bitterness? 
 
 Thus all of my leisure moments were filled with the 
 presence of Cosmonette. And my heart yearned for 
 the old-time lore and trust, but could not break through 
 the gloom that enveloped it. For nearly three years I 
 did not see the face of any whom I loved. 
 
 I had missed the path to a spiritual life, and was at 
 war with the conditions of the material one in which I 
 found myself. The faith which I had embraced was, 
 I had believed, founded upon the separation of the 
 spiritual from the material, so I had learned to ignore 
 commonplaces, to despise commodities, and to live a 
 life that was as dangerous as it was elevated, as false 
 as it was sweet. Now that my feet were once more 
 upon terra firma, and I could reason, I saw the true 
 inwardness of the situation. Not only so, but the veil 
 had been torn from before that enchanting system of 
 belief, and I saw that what was beautifully spiritual 
 could be basely material. And so my faith was gone ; 
 and if the flight of love had left a blank in my life, the 
 flight of faith now left a greater blank. I never vvilked 
 
CHAOS 
 
 W 
 
 ck my 
 • calm 
 Some- 
 Qgo in 
 plead, 
 trough 
 ul, did 
 je each 
 Tie and 
 re, the 
 smess V 
 r'lth. the 
 ned for 
 ihrough 
 years I 
 
 was at 
 which I 
 ed was, 
 of the 
 ignore 
 live a 
 as false 
 ce more 
 he true 
 the veil 
 stem of 
 spiritual 
 gone; 
 life, the 
 walked 
 
 beneath a changing or unchanging sky, I never heard 
 the singing of a bird, nor the rnusic of winds or of waves, 
 I never penned a thought, never responded to one from 
 the heart and brain of another, I never longed for home, 
 I never thought upon God's great ones who had lived 
 and suffered, who had striven and attained, without a 
 consciousness that my soul was immortal. But the 
 beautiful spirit world upon which my mind had once 
 loved to dwell, and which had shot its rays to the 
 lowest levels of my life, gilding them with glory, went 
 farther and farther from me, until it seemed like a 
 mirage fading away in the distance. At times I ar- 
 rived at the conclusion that a truly spiritual life was 
 possible to those who, like Cosraonette, were out of the 
 line of material influences, or who, like Shelley, soared 
 so high that they were above the reach of them. But 
 how could I, having once been entangled by such in- 
 fluences, and being now chained to earth by memoiies 
 that stung and by a knowledge that tainted,— how 
 could I ever reach that spiritual height ? This seemed 
 impossible ; and I heard the tread of hope as she 
 walked out of my life. So long had I lived in the ideal 
 that, to my mind, any other life was death to happiness. 
 I believed that love resulted from the meeting of con- 
 genial spirits, and that true love could live only where 
 there were light and beauty, only in the hearts of the 
 spiritual. Thus my sudden fall to earth— by means of 
 a knowledge which, God knows, came unsought- 
 branded me, so that forever true love would pass me by. 
 But there were left to me intellectual faculties? 
 Could they not break the fetters which my soul 
 
78 
 
 CHAON ORR 
 
 abhorred ? Then I bent all my energies to the exercise 
 of these, and again lived at fever heat. For a moment 
 there was a gleam as of dawning glory, but it soon 
 faded and life was again a blank. There was no 
 inspiration. The spirits which from my childhood 
 had crowded around me, urging me on to earnest 
 endeavor, to purity, to power, had all left me. Then 
 the darkness became denser. There was no spiritual 
 life. We were but flesh and blood. Faith was 
 cowardice, hope was mockery, love was passion. We 
 were in the world and there was nothing to do but to 
 make the best of it. As to the future it would be a 
 release from the present ; and that was about all any 
 one could or need know of it. 
 
 It may have been the influence of the book I was 
 reading, or of the beautiful June'. weather ; or, perhaps, 
 some loving spirit, aware of the void in my life, had 
 returned to me. Or was it that a gentler and holier 
 influence was at work in my heart ? Certainly the third 
 summer following that dark Christmas found me less 
 unhappy than I had been since that never-to-be-forgot- 
 ten day. With a return of spring came a longing to see 
 those by the memory of whose love I lived, even though 
 a unconquerable bitterness towards conditions in gener- 
 al prevented me from expressing to them the love that a 
 shattered faith and blasted hope oould not destroy. So 
 when with the first day of June there came a long and 
 loving letter from Cosmonette entreating me to come 
 home to her wedding, the old love struggled hard to 
 assert itself, and a ray of light pierced the darkness. 
 I stood powerless between two influences. That of the 
 
CHAOS 
 
 79 
 
 BTCise 
 »inent 
 , soon 
 M no 
 ihood 
 i,rnest 
 Then 
 [ritual 
 i was 
 . We 
 but to 
 d be a 
 ill any 
 
 I was 
 
 jrhaps, 
 le, had 
 L holier 
 le third 
 ne less 
 •forgot- 
 g to see 
 though 
 gener- 
 thata 
 oy. So 
 mg and 
 o come 
 hard to 
 rkness. 
 ,t of the 
 
 past probed my heart and poured in unbelief and bitter- 
 ness. That of the present endeavored to heal it. 
 
 I left the house, hoping to flee from the conflict. 
 Leaving the path that lay to the north of a hill, I came 
 to the rugged shore of the sea. The great cliffs had 
 hidden this view from me, and it was with intense 
 emotion that I beheld the scene. The sea looked black 
 in its fury, and the tempestuous waves broke upon the 
 shore with a crash and a moan which I shall never 
 forget. The wind was high and bore before it a large, 
 dark cloud that hung loosely in the sky as if it wou^d 
 fall upon the billows. In the midst of this mad exercise 
 of the elements, a little bird flew around me in evident 
 distress. I watched it until it found shelter in an 
 opening in a large rock above my head. ^ nd there, in 
 the pauses of the storm, I heard it singing. 
 
 Oh, bird with the heavenly message ! With the wild 
 winds around me, the angry sea beside me, the black 
 rocks and blacker sky above me, I buried my face in my 
 hands, and my hard heart melted. Again they crowded 
 around me, the dear ones with loves as true as heaven 
 and as pure as its joys; and I heard Cosmonette singing: 
 
 *' I know a Bock in this weary land. 
 
 Whose shadow is cool and sweet ; 
 A Refuge safe from the wind and tide, 
 And storm-tossed souls in its cleft abide 
 
 Forever in safe retreat. 
 
 " A fearful tempest of pain and sin 
 
 Is sweeping across the land ; 
 And lest I die by its awful shock. 
 Oh ! hide me, Lord, in the Cleft of the Bock, 
 
 And cover me with Thy hand." 
 
XI. 
 
 SHOD. 
 
 '^HEN the driver closed the door of the cab, 
 sprang to his seat and started his horse on a 
 brisk trot, somewhat of my old energy and 
 hope returned to me. And when at the station the big 
 burly official wearing a uniform and a frown, shouted 
 " All aboard ! " my heart leaped with a joy to which 
 it had long been a stranger. 
 
 As the day wore on, the home pictures passed before 
 my minds' eye in rapid succession, and my eagerness to 
 reach my father's house became so intense that it was 
 painful. Every mile placed between me and the scene 
 of my bondage snapt one of the cords by which I had 
 been held. The bocks and magazines which I had 
 taken upon my journey to act as charmers to the gloom 
 which had so long possessed me, lay unnoticed upon 
 the seat in front of me. 
 
 The second half of the journey seemed interminable. 
 I tried to read, I tried to write, I tried to talk with my 
 neighbor, I tried to walk the floor of the Pullman car, 
 but I failed in everything. Then I grew childish, and 
 opening my valise I examined the presents I had for 
 the home folks. This was a bold act, and struck such 
 a blow to gloom and bitterness that they lay uncon- 
 scious during the rest of my journey. 
 
 At this point a str^.nger sitting behind me — I could 
 
SHOD 
 
 81 
 
 not determine whether he was lonely or only curious— 
 said : 
 
 •'Going home, Sir?" 
 
 I answered, '* Going home." 
 
 He said no mura, but crossed to the other side of the 
 car, and supported his chin with his hand as he looked 
 out of the window. 
 
 Could one pass from the gloom of midnight into the 
 radiance of the sunniest morning, he might have some 
 conception of the transition through which my spiiit 
 passed when I reached my father's house. 
 
 We sat together in my mother's artistic parlor, and 
 lore sang its old sweet song in every spoken word and 
 in every heart throb. Then my soul was free once 
 more, and I thanked God for the jubilant spirit which 
 no calamity could utterly crush. I see ruy mother now 
 as she looked that night, transcendent in beauty and in 
 joy. She wore a gown of crimson velvet, with a front 
 of cream lace to soften the shade as it blended with the 
 deep blue of her eye. I noticed little change in her 
 hair. The sprinkling of grey could not detract from 
 the beauty of her soft brown coil. Cosmonette wore a 
 canary colored dress, and her brown eyes lighted up her 
 face with an animation that was new and beautiful. 
 My father was exultant, and his dear eyes beamed upon 
 me the love that his lips could not utter. Jasper was 
 half serious, even when he smiled, and the gentle influ- 
 ence that had always characterized them, breathed from 
 his words and actions. Katie's face was bathed in tears, 
 but she insisted that she had " not knowed so happy 
 a moment since Laddie left us, law to goodness, no! " 
 
82 
 
 CHAOM ORR 
 
 The marriage of Cosmonette and Jasper took place 
 in our home, and "the new minister" who had re- 
 mained with the congregation to which our family be- 
 longed, officiated. The wedding was like all other 
 weddings at which love is supreme. The house 
 decorations were artistic, the j^ooms were filled with 
 the fragrance of flowers, the music was all concordant, 
 every face wore a smile, and the sun shone upon the 
 bride and upon everyone within a wide radius of her. 
 There were no tears, not even in the eyes of my mother. 
 I did not look into her heart. Cosmonette was radiant, 
 and flitted from Jasper to mother, from mother to 
 father, from father to me, and back again to Jasper 
 with the ease and grace of a gazelle at play. 
 
 I had expected to experience considerable sorrow at 
 this event, but the good cheer of the occasion forbade 
 any thought of a selfish grief. But when I heard the 
 mumbling of the carriage coming to take Cosmonette 
 from us, and we all crowded around her with open 
 arms and loving words, a cold, dull pain came into my 
 heart. I kissed her again and again, my Cosmonette, 
 my twin, and whispered in her ear the love of which 
 she needed no assurance. In that moment no one 
 knew better than we that "there is somethin' awful 
 spirital in bein' twins." 
 
 In the midst of a shower of rice, good wishes and 
 sunshine, the carriage rolled away, and she was gone, 
 our darling, our beauty, of whom my mother had said, 
 " She never caused me to shed a tear." 
 
 Then followed days of loneliness and depression. 
 Cosmonette was to remain away for at least six months, 
 
SHOD 
 
 63 
 
 and whenever the wind would rise my mother would 
 become weak and nervous, and once she lay awake all 
 night thinking of her child and Jasper upon the sea. 
 The next morning Katie prepared an especially dainty 
 dish for her and said as she served it : 
 
 " Law to goodness, Lovie, who'd hev thought you'd 
 be so foolish ? Don't He hold the winds an' the waves 
 in the holler of His hand ? An' do you s'pose he's goin 
 to take care o' sparras that's no earthly good but to 
 fight birds prettier 'n 'emselves, and not take care o' 
 that angel that's moved among us all these years like 
 a beam o' heavenly light ? Law to goodness ! If it was 
 Chaon, now, yo' might be oneasy; but them two 
 precious souls is as safe on the sea as if they was 
 walkin' arm in arm up an' down the golden streets o' 
 the celestial city. There aintnoharm comin'tothem." 
 
 " I have no fears for their safety," replied my mother, 
 " but it is the loneliness. I miss Cosmonette so." 
 
 "But, Lovie, yo' didn't take on like this when she 
 was away four years at college, a hull year at a time. 
 All' now she'll be back in six monthsto live just around 
 the corner from yo.' Law to goodness ! What is there 
 to fret about ?" 
 
 "But, Katie, you don't understand. She belonged 
 to me then ; but now she's married. My girl is ^one." 
 Here my mother burnt into tears. 
 
 " Now don't fret," pleaded Katie, "your girl aint 
 Rone. Law to pfoodnest^ jjow you do cling to myterial 
 things! How many lliiu'-s I've told yo', Lovie, that 
 flesh an' bones aint nothin'. The spirt's everything, 
 the spirt, Lovie, an' bftween spirts there aint no such 
 
84 
 
 ORAOM ORR 
 
 thing as sep'ration. No, Loyie ! There aini a brnnKt 
 that comes in through one o' them windows but hrlngi 
 to me the young man's singin' an' some of his wise an' 
 gentle words that was sweeter 'n his music. An' there 
 aint a sunbeam comin'in tlirough tJiAmflnwPrs yonder 
 but brings to me Cosie's smilu. In evei'jr Ntar tliai 
 shines I see the sparklin' of her beautiful brown e.ye, 
 When the wind moves the grasses an' flowers, 1 fancy 
 it's the rustlin' of her pinlc gown with the ribbons 
 flyin' here and there. Law to goodness, Lovie, the 
 hull house is full of her. When I go into her room I 
 see her touchin' the canvas with those delercate 
 brushes, or hangin' up a bit o' beauty here an' there. 
 An' there lays one o' her Bibles- open, an' the verse 
 marked which she read to me before the minister como 
 to marry her— 'And the glory which thou gavest me I 
 have given them hat they may be one, even as we 
 are one,' No,]Lov. j, there aint no such thing as sep'ra- 
 tion. When my time comes to sit with folded hands, 
 an' the sunbeams fade to my eyes, an' the music sounds 
 low, I'll still near the patter o' Cosie's little feet, an' 
 feel her climb into my lap, an' put her soft arms about 
 my neck. God bless the little darlin' ! How far away 
 did yo' say they'd gone? An', law to goodness, they 
 aint been away two weeks yet. Maybe they'd shorten 
 their trip if they knowed how terrible lonesome we all 
 was. Not that I mind it much myself, but Laddie an' 
 his father looks pitiful. An' you're goin' to be sick if 
 yo' don't brace up. There, you aint eat a mouthful I 
 Come, Lovie, eat a bite, dearie." 
 Each day left my mo^h«»r weaker ttan the previous 
 
finon 
 
 86 
 
 nni. I"'ifillini' «|»oiil niONl, of IiIm Ijtnn af, iiotriR, Sini we 
 safl|t In Mollinr, hl/iyiid lo lioi , idad In linr, hrought to 
 her lier favorite flowfirs, nui\ farant our own imitiUnePFi 
 In oui' (jiifurnnsH to nlrfiHf \>f>v hmri ilnl. we soon 
 learned that our loving riiliilshles AUd the best medical 
 Hitill wer'n fiitlln. The fever reached its height, and 
 for* lituirly a week her life hung In tlio balance. Father 
 watched her day land night, taking a little sleep 
 occasionally whenever I would literally drag him 
 from her bedside. I can never foi'^iil llio night when 
 the crisis was reached. Physicians had given us 
 little hope of her recovery, and we all three sat with 
 her through the long hours of that dreadful night, f 
 could not look at niy fathnr. Tf breaking hearts ovftr 
 speak, his spoke tlu'ough IiIh iwom I biil. nl^hl . T seemed 
 to myself a raonstei' to lin ^'e a sorrow of my own wh«»// 
 his wa;j so great. Mother lay with hoi beaut if nl tuou 
 turned towards us, but her eyes wore closed, and (hoiri 
 was no response wIimii wo preHRed her Inirid • Mother I 
 whofae personal charms and sudden flashes of poeiio 
 fire had been the brightness of our years, to whom I 
 owed Cosmonette's life and my own, and who at forty- 
 live placed her hand in my father's with the same 
 winsome grace with which she placed it there at 
 twenty. 
 
 Interminabxe seemed the hours of that night. A 
 hr^^/^, came through the open south window bringing us 
 tli* intern nee of flowers that only mocked our sorrow. 
 
 The first matin chirp of a bird was heard as Katie 
 went to the bedside, smoothed my mother's hair, kissed 
 her tenderly and turned to leave the room, 
 
86 
 
 CHAON ORR 
 
 '* Is she better? " I asked, for about the hundredth 
 time. 
 
 '• No change yet, Laddie," she whispered, " Least- 
 wise not for the better." 
 
 When fifteen miniates had passed, Katie's absence 
 had become unbearable to me, and I went in search of 
 her. She was not in the kitchen, not in the dining 
 room, not in the library nor drawing room. Then 
 I went to her own room. She was not there. 
 Weakened by anxious sorrow and long watching, 
 I half believed that Katie's spiritual attainments, 
 if not hei skill in nursing, might be the means of 
 my mother's recovery, and I felt that I must find 
 her. I went to the third floor of the house. Upon 
 this floor there was a long, narrow hall, at the end of 
 which was a room used as a sort of treasure-house. 
 The window commanded a most beautiful view, and 
 my mother used to say that this scene inspired her 
 best and cheeriest thought. I had long believed that 
 Katie's guardian angels made special appointments 
 with her to meet them in this room. This belief may 
 have influenced me to look there for her. The hall 
 was dark, but a soft grey light came from under the 
 door of the room, the window of which looked to the 
 east. I crept along the hall quietly, and hearing 
 Katie's voice paused beside the door. It was not 
 curiosity but reverence that held me there while she 
 said : 
 
 •'Is it too much to ask o' such a mighty God an' 
 such a lovin' Saviour, just the life o' one human bein' V 
 Oh Lord ! aint heaven bright enough without Lovie ? 
 
SHOD 
 
 87 
 
 If it can be Thy will, lovin' Saviour, leave her to us, 
 for now that Cosie's gone she's all we have o' sunshine 
 an' beauty. An' yet if she's nearin' the spirt land 
 now, don't send her back, fur to be with Christ is far 
 better. But how could we live without her? Oh 
 God, save Lovie ! Save Lovie ! An' bless poor 
 Laddie. Thou know'st, Lord, as I clnsp my hands 
 before Thee now I can feel between 'em Laddie's little 
 feet, bare and bleedin'. When wilt Thou make him 
 to lie down in green pastures an' lead hira beside still 
 wateis? Fill his lovin' heart with love o' Thee, O 
 Chiefest among ten thousand, O One altogether lovely ! 
 Take away his loneliness, and fill his heart with 
 the Comforter. Forgive Lovie an' Laddie's father for 
 bein' ashamed to talk o' spirital things, for bein' 
 ashamed to speak o' the hope that's stayed by 'era 
 certain an' true ever since baby Leonora went away to 
 baby Nina. Forgive 'era, dear Lord, an' make 'em have 
 more courage in the future. Oh ! save Lovie ! Save 
 Lovie ! Leave to us our light, our beauty, our joy." 
 
 Here Katie's voice shook with emf)tion, and I was 
 seized with an irapiilse to rusli into the roora and 
 acknowledge rayself a raiserable, ungrateful wretch. 
 All ray life carae before rae frora the day when Katie 
 carried rae across the road of sharp stones until the 
 moraent in v/hich I heard her pray, and all the way 
 along I could see her pleading with God for ray 
 spiritual light and safety. She continued to pray for 
 Mother's recovery, and for the peace of my soul ; but I 
 slipped away as quietly as I had come. After stopping 
 in| the library a few moments to compose myself, I 
 
88 
 
 CHAON ORR 
 
 went to Mother's room. My father mot me ai: the 
 door with tears streaming down his face. One 
 physician stood at the bedside, another stood at a 
 table preparing a mixture. The curtain was drawn 
 back to let in the light. I seized my father's hand, not 
 daring to question him. But his tears were tears of 
 joy. He led me to the bed, placed my hand in Mother's 
 and asked, as he bent over her : 
 
 **Do you know who this is, Maggie?" 
 
 " Chaon," she answered, with a smile that touched 
 to life the dead hope in my heart. 
 
 I lost no time in communicating to Katie the glad 
 news of the change in my mother's condition. I could 
 not wait for ceremony, but rushed in upon the precious 
 woman rather irreverently I fear. When she arose 
 from her knees she was very pale. Her eyes were red 
 with weeping, and the g."3y hair around her forehead, 
 dishevelled from being buried in the cusliiofis of a 
 chair, looked withered and broken . She turned towards 
 me and putting ht-r dear arm about iriy neck, said : 
 
 " Laddie darlin', God has answered one half o' my 
 prayer. How long must I wait for an anwwffr to tbo 
 other half?" 
 
 I watched her leave the room and close bi^hind hav 
 the door. Then kneeling where she had knelt, / 
 pleaded for the light, the liberty, the love which I now 
 believed could only come from one source. As I 
 prayed the burdens rolled away, one by one. The 
 hour was holy, the place was holy. I cannot tell how 
 long I remained upon my knees, but when I arose the 
 room was flooded with sunlight ; and so was my soul. 
 
XII. 
 
 LENA HART. 
 
 HEN the crisis was passed, my mother 
 plained rapidly, and was soon in her old 
 
 place, the queen of my father's home as well 
 as of his heart. The circle was not complete without 
 Cosmonette and Clairmont, and yet Katie used some- 
 times to say as we all sat together and talked of the 
 mysteries and consolations of a truly spiritual life, 
 that she believed when Simeon said, ''Lord, now 
 lettest Thou Thy servant depart in peace • * • 
 for mine eyes have seen Thy salvation," he must have 
 felt a good deal as she felt then. Only she was not in 
 any particular hurry to depart. 
 
 I remained at home until Cosmonette and Jasper 
 had had enough of touring and came back to us as full 
 of inspiration as are carrier bees of nectar from a 
 clover field. Then I turned again to the world. 
 
 It was not until several weeks had passed, and the 
 confusion of getting into harness had been lived down, 
 that 1 had time and thought to give to contrasting my 
 new with my old faith. Then I found that the spiritual 
 life to which / had awakened was not only soul-satis- 
 fying, but was an inspiration in my work. The lone, 
 bare tree in the once de8ola*4» field of life had been re- 
 clothed in rich and luxuriant, but perennial foliage. 
 The mystic charm of life ha^ returned to me, and with 
 
90 
 
 GHAON ORR 
 
 it, instead of fever heat, repose ; instead of faith in my- 
 self, a faith in God ; instead of flashes of intellectual 
 brilliancy, the never-fading radiance of the Light of the 
 world, permeating my mental as well as my spiritual 
 life, and gilding with ever-increasing brightness the 
 material world. The spiritual conceptions, the hal- 
 lowed influences of my earlier years came back into my 
 life with a beauty and a power that placed it above the 
 reach of doubt and gloom, and anchored my soul to an 
 immovable hope of eternal blessedness. Once again 
 the whole world of nature started to life. Every tree, 
 every blade of grass, every cloud in the sky, every 
 wave of the sea was vocal with love and thanksgiving. 
 Every face was a picture and every voice was a song. 
 
 Two years from the time of Cosmonette's marriage 
 found me settled for a few months of work at the 
 MuUvany homestead. I chose this spot because of its 
 seclusion, because of the bianty of its surroundings, 
 and— well, "because." 
 
 Early in the evening of an Auj?ust day I dropped my 
 pen and went into the garden. The scene was one of 
 indescribable beauty. From the flowers at my feet I 
 cast my eyes to the fields of grain at either side, to the 
 purple hills in the distance, to the valleys dotted over 
 with groups of trees, to the unclouded sky above me, 
 and to the crimson and gold that lingered languidly 
 around the spot from which the sun had gone to rest. 
 Then slowly the crimson faded to a dull purple, and 
 over all the land fell the mystical charm of a midsum- 
 mer twilight. Not a sound was heard, excepting the 
 occasional rustling of the leaves of the trees that divi- 
 
LENA HART 
 
 91 
 
 ded the productive fields from the opposite wood. The 
 air was laden with that delicious fragrance which 
 nature gives after a midsummer shower, and the com- 
 ing night gave promise ol great beauty. 
 
 As I was nearing the river, my ( ir caught the sound 
 of a voice, fresh and beautiful as the morning, rolling 
 away beyond the trees in silver rings and lying in the 
 home of the sleeping sun. Then turring towards the 
 bend of the river I saw the little boat and its fair occu- 
 pant drifting noislessly towards me. The fair one was 
 leaning forward with her hands clasped around one 
 knee, straining her ear to hear the echoes of her voice. 
 Seeing me, she gave a glad cry of welcome, and with a 
 few easy strokes brought her boat to the brink of the 
 river. She wore no hat, and her golden curls were 
 grouped together at the back of her head, and tied with 
 a knot of blue ribbon. As she lifted her head and 
 pointed towards the heavens, her loose sleeve fell to 
 her shoulder and exposed to the warm south wind and 
 to my eye an arm so soft and white, and so exquisitely 
 moulded that Zeno himself would have bowed to its 
 beauty. 
 
 " Look !" she cried, "it was to have been with the 
 light of the first star; and now there are one, two, 
 three, four stars." 
 
 I offered my apologies as clumsily as I tumbled imto 
 the boat, and she gave me her pardon as gracefully as 
 she gave me her hand, which latter act brought the 
 boat to its equilibrium and saved us both from a most 
 unpoetic experience. 
 
 Solemnly rose the moon over the fields of ripening 
 
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 OHAOM OBE 
 
 bsrley and threw her long beams upon the water, ai 
 that night in August, we rowed down the stream ; and 
 the loye which for more than a year had been waging 
 a fierce war with a prejudice bom of a bitter experience, 
 re-enforced now by the beauty of the scene, and by the 
 harmony which breathed horn erery word which 
 Lena spoke, made a last and a successful attack upon 
 its enemy. Over a dead prejudice leaped loye, free at 
 last and free forever. 
 
 During the two years which had passed since that 
 morning when the sunlight came into my soul, many 
 of my hours of keenest spiritual delight had been fol- 
 lowed by hours of conflict. The union of spirits, the 
 blending of soul with soul, was to me a condition so 
 all-satiitfying, haying in it so much of heaven, that I 
 looked upon love's realm as an enchanted ground upon 
 which my soul— prone to idol worship— wduld know 
 no safety. Conscious of the fact that love had lured 
 me into a belief which, if persisted in, would have 
 proven fatal to my soul as it once proved fatal to my 
 happiness, I deemed it necessary to shut it out of my 
 life. I reasoned that as my home loves were more to 
 me than to most men, a wise Providence, doubtless, in- 
 tended them to fill my life. Besides this. He had sent 
 into my heart the love of Christ which was to all other 
 loves as the sun to the star. But the heart grows by 
 loving, and a half-filled heart is as displeasing in the 
 sight of God as a half-lived life. 
 In one of her letters, Cosmonette had said to me : 
 '*Do not be afraid to live your life. Would Ood 
 have given you a large soul if He had intended you to 
 
LINA HAST 
 
 live narrowly ? And does He who is Love ezpoct from 
 His children a nature in direct opposi&ion to the one 
 which He gives them ? Then do not be a slave to a 
 prejudice. The Divine Master is not a hard Master. 
 The gifts which He freely gives He wants us to freely 
 accept. If you deny an existence to the love that is 
 struggling for its birth, you may, in so doing, thwart 
 God's purpose in your life, as well as bring to your 
 heart a wound which time can never heal." 
 
 Coming in one of my most tender moments, this 
 seemed decidedly wholesome advice, and, unlike most 
 advice, easy to take. By degrees the prejvdise was 
 weakened, until the little boat became a Waterloo, and 
 the victory was won. 
 
 But during these two years the spiritual conflict had 
 been two-fold. Looking back over my life, three land- 
 marks pointed unmistakeably, in my mind, to the 
 consummation and the revelation at which my stunned 
 soul had staggered. They were the Pastoral Sym- 
 phony in the Music Hall of the metropolis, the visit to 
 me of Shelley's spirit in our library, and my introduc- 
 tion to Alfred Gorley. Whilo I recognized that I 
 inherited my love of poetry from my mother, and my 
 love of music from my father, I believed that the three 
 experiences to which I have referred, with perhaps 
 that of the circus added, were responsible for the 
 extreme position which I had taken in a so-called 
 spiritual Ufe. And so far above the old life did I find 
 the new, that I would close my heart to the sweetest 
 influences rather than yield myself to any that, in an 
 unguarded moment, might tend to renew my bondage. 
 
9A 
 
 OHAON ORB 
 
 My volumes of Shelley and Goethe were put away out 
 of my sight. I rarely listened to a Sjrmphony but 
 contented myself with the oratorio, and when at home 
 asked for the music of Mendelssohn and Mozart instead 
 of that of Beethoven and Schubert. And yet from 
 morning until night the old sweet strains went singing 
 through my soul, even from their prison lighting up 
 life to a keen delight. The light and the love for 
 which I had prayed in the treasure-house at home, had 
 been given me in fullest measure ; but the liberty for 
 which I had also pleaded had been granted, I now 
 believed, in the form of a release from the debt which 
 the Saviour had paid for me by his death un the cross, 
 but which brought with it certain spiritual restrictions 
 as a supplement, on my part, to the work of the Re- 
 deemer. I did not speak of this belief to those at 
 home, feeling that the restrictions to which I have 
 referred, while they were necessary to my highest 
 well-being, could have no place in the lives of those 
 who had lived at a more normal temperature. And so 
 in many of my happiest moments there was somewhat 
 of sadness which, however, I accepted with resigna- 
 tion and heroism, and these I looked upi>n as superior 
 spiritual attainments. 
 
 It was in some such frame of mind as this that I 
 stepped, clumsily enough, into Lena's boat. But 
 when we had rowed for an hour, and the final battle 
 of love with prejudice had been fought and won, the 
 resignation and the heroism became less beautiful to 
 me. And I felt myself to be the slave of a circum- 
 stance as well as of a condition. 
 
LBNA HART 
 
 95 
 
 The circumstance was this : Lena had not asked 
 time to consider, nor time to look into her own heart, 
 nor time for anything. She was not surprised that I 
 loved her, was quite sure that she loved me and would 
 marry me. Imagine my situation! Lena was as 
 beautiful as Gosmonette, but was gifted with a merri- 
 ment and an earnestness, with a sparkling vivacity 
 which Cosmonette exhibited only in supreme moments. 
 She was as full of poetry as is a lily of purity, but it 
 was a poetry that sang and danced and leaped for joy. 
 And yet at times she was extremely practical, and I 
 often felt that her somewhat severe remarks helped to 
 confirm me in my belief regarding the restrictions 
 which I deemed necessary in my thought and feeling. 
 (She was four months older than I). She had a smile 
 that could lighten up the darkest dungeon,' and a laugh 
 that the very stars in heaven would fain echo. She 
 was as fearless as she was fond, and coquetted with 
 Nature in her wildest moments, gaily snd trium- 
 phantly. This was the woman before me whom I 
 loved with all my strength of being,— the woman 
 who had promised to be my wife, and who had given 
 that promise in the same breath in which she had hum- 
 med the refrain of an old love song, dipping the oars 
 as quietly as she sang. And there I sat in that miser- 
 able little boat, not daring to move hand nor foot. I 
 suggested that the night air was getting damp'; she 
 suggested that I put on my hat. I suggested that her 
 father might think the hour late ; had we not better go 
 in ? Oh, no ! Papa knew she could handle any boat, 
 and that she always carried a revolver when she went 
 
w 
 
 I 
 
 •t- CHAOM ORR 
 
 through the wood. Besides this, no one ever came that 
 way. And so there was nothing to do but to wait 
 
 until my lady chose to row us to shore, «>.nd then . 
 
 The beauty haying been brushed off the resignation 
 and heroism upon which I had once prided myself, I 
 was seized with a determination to, sometime, consult 
 the oracle before me on a subject of so great importance. 
 But a supreme moment leaves nothing to the future. 
 The time brought the opportunity. As our boat passed 
 from the deep shadows cast by overhanging trees and 
 came into the light of the moon. Lena rested her hands 
 upon her oars, and replied to one of my questions in 
 Shelley's words : 
 
 * * I am as a spirit who has dwelt 
 
 Within his heart of hearts ; and I have felt 
 
 His feelings, and have thought his thoughts, and known 
 
 The inmost converse of his soul." 
 
 To hear Shelley quoted icmder such conditions was 
 rather more than I would have bargained for in my 
 most stoical moods. My heart leaped with an energy 
 of delight that sent prison bars to the four comers of 
 the earth. Just as, at that moment— had not Lena 
 held up a dainty fore- finger in warning— I would have 
 bounded to the bow of the boat and held her in my 
 arms in spite of the prospect of a watery grave, so, in 
 that moment, I would have given my soul her freedom 
 had! known that the act would be fatal. 
 
 Having been brought to my senses by the dainty 
 fore-finger, I composed myself, reaching the opposite 
 extreme by means of my great effort to do so, and said : 
 
 '* I thought you were too orthodox to read Shelley." 
 
LBNA HART 
 
 t7 
 
 "I am not too orthodox to read Shelley's poetry," 
 replied Lena. " Poetry, like music, is the voice of 
 Jehovah, as art is the touch of His hand. When Shel- 
 ley sang his songs :t was the divine implanted in him 
 making itself heard by those whom it was sent to 
 bless. But when he penned the thoughts that have 
 darkened his name, it was the human in him crying 
 for light. Poor Shelley ! we may net judge him. 
 Certainly he seemed to ignore the one way to life ; but 
 words are, after all, only words, and behind Shelley's 
 exposition of a groundless faith there may have been a 
 consciousness of his soul's great need, and a simple 
 trust in God's mercy through His Son. Of thisU am 
 certain : No spirit can live, as did Shelley's, in a realm 
 of light and beauty, and not be nearer heaven for so 
 living. But of this, also, I am certain : Eternal life 
 is the gift of G«d through the world's Redeemer. But 
 there is, after all, very little of Shelley's belief in Shel- 
 ley's poetry. Concerning Shelley, the man, I trouble 
 myself but little ; but Shelley's poetry remains in my 
 life a fixed delight. 
 
 ** To me, poetry and the poet are one," I replied. 
 
 *^ And one to me," answered Lena. '' But the poet 
 and the man are two, and we should discriminate be- 
 tween what is and what is not great. The world's 
 great enei are God's ministers to whom, present or 
 absent, lii given power to communicate to us wonder- 
 ful and beautiful things— a mystic and inexplicable 
 ministry. 
 
 " You give to poetry a very sacred office," I said. 
 
 '* Tea," replied Lena, f^* for it comes from God. He 
 
98 
 
 OHAON ORR 
 
 ■1 
 
 m 
 
 made everything beautiful, and 'witholds no good 
 thing.' Now listen. You enjoy this water, for in- 
 stance, and yet it could rob you of your life. But you 
 feel safe because you are in a boat. Then why do you 
 fear to meet an exposition of a false religion if your 
 soul feels herself secure in her faith ? You may enjoy 
 poetry without accepting the teaching of the poet." 
 
 ''But are you quite sure," I asked, 'Hhat intel- 
 lectual delights can be indulged in without robbing the 
 soul of its warmth of devotion to God ?" 
 
 "Quite sure!" replied I>*ia. "It is because of 
 your past experiences that you fear to fully enjoy intel- 
 lectual delights. But when the soul is sanctified by 
 grace the intellect is also sanctified, and its exercise is 
 well-pleasing to Him Who gave it. If the heart be 
 tuned to praise, you can read a poem or write a book, 
 and I can row a boat, leap a hurdle or play a sonata, 
 with as acceptable a worship as if we chanted a psalm ; 
 for He Whom we adore sees beyond the act and beyond 
 the spoken word. When I first stepped into this dear 
 Httle boat, I dedicated it to the worship of Him Who 
 gave it, with as earnest a devotion as I dedicated my 
 pew in church. And when Pet moves her hoofs rest- 
 lessly, eager for a race with the west wind, to meet 
 the sunrise, I spring into the saddle and giving her 
 the rein, sing in my heart, ' His love shines over all.' " 
 
 "Oh, Lena!" I cried, "You make me ashamed of 
 my littleness. I have only half lived." 
 
 " Do not be ashamed of anything,'* she replied, 
 "And do not be afraid of poetry and music. Do not be 
 afraid of your own 8ti*«ngth,*live the life God gives you, 
 
LBMA HART 
 
 99 
 
 and be thankful for it. I should think you would be 
 afraid to enjoy this scene of matchless beautj'." And 
 she laughed a laugh so mischievous, so musical, and 
 yet so full of something half divine that I scarcely 
 knew whether I was upon earth or in heaven. Live my 
 life? Yes, from that very moment ; and I said : 
 
 "Lena Hart, if you do not row us to shore at once, 
 I'll ." 
 
 But the fore-finger again forbade the least movement 
 on my part. I had begun to think her cruel when, 
 giving a good-night nod to our shadows in the water, 
 she turned her boat to the shore. 
 
XIII. 
 
 CLOUDS QATHBR AMD BRIIAK. 
 
 T 
 
 HREE years before the summer of whieh I haye 
 written in the previous chapter, laborers on the 
 Mullvany farm heard men chopping in the wood 
 across the river. These men were heard calling to 
 one another as if engaged in some important work. 
 Early in August a house was completed and furnished, 
 and a fortnight later its occupants were Thomas 
 Gordan Hart, his sister, his daughter, a man servant 
 and a maid servant. 
 
 Mr. Hart visited his summer home frequently, and 
 while there spent his time in private conversation with 
 his sister, in whom he found a sympathetic friend, or 
 with Lena, 
 
 Lena knew nothing of the movements of her father. 
 
 *' It is my particular business to be happy," she used 
 to say as she stepped into her light boat or with pillow 
 and book sought the shade of her favorite tree. "And I 
 am of the opinion," she would sometimes add, *' that if 
 one is a success at being happy one's life can scarcely 
 be called a failure." 
 
 Lena entered into her engagement with me without 
 the least fear of opposition from her father. 
 
 *' He has always received you kindly in town," she 
 said, ** and when he knows that I love you it will .be 
 all right." 
 
 
CLOUDS aATHIK AMD BRBAK 
 
 101 
 
 But it was not all right. In vain I pleaded with Mr. 
 Hart, for Lena's lake as well as my own, to consent 
 to the marriage. I told him of the prospect of success 
 in my work, of the comforts and luxuries that would 
 fill Lena's life, of the appreciation and sympathy with 
 which she would meet in my family, and closed my 
 oration by reminding him that Lena was not only 
 necessary to my happiness but that she was necessary 
 to my existence. 
 
 Here Mr. Hart's impatience grew into anger. Throw- 
 ing open the door of his room he cried : 
 
 " Necessary to your existence ! And what of mine ? 
 No man shall rob me of her, my only joy, the one gleam 
 of light left to me in this dark world. I have built a 
 home for her and there she shall remain. Begone, sir, 
 begone! 1 11 have no more of this." 
 
 I pitied the man before me, but I loved his daughter 
 and was determined to marry her. 
 
 **Once more, Mr. Hart," I said, **I ask for your 
 daughter's hand. Can you call that a love for your 
 child which would rob her of her dearest joy ? Your 
 daughter, sir, is a woman and we love each other. 
 And I swear to you by all that is sacred that her loving 
 heart shall never know a sorrow that I can avert, nor 
 her body a pang that I can relieve. But marry her I 
 will ! With your consent, I hope, sir ; if not, with- 
 out it." 
 
 I waited for a reply. Mr. Hart showed considerable 
 agitation, but there was little token of surrender in the 
 man. At length he said, with confusion : 
 
 ** Give me until to-morrow ; I must talk with Lena, 
 
 
\ • 
 
 102 
 
 OHAOH OBB 
 
 'il 
 
 
 i|i 
 
 'M, 
 
 
 i*i, 
 
 ^tt 
 
 
 ^ 
 
 4' 
 
 m 
 
 m 
 
 ""mi 
 
 Hi 
 
 imk 
 
 To* morrow, Mr. Orr. You are right, Lena is no longer 
 a child, no longer a child. To-morrow then." 
 
 There is an influence of mind over mind eren at a 
 distance. The following morning I felt irresistibly 
 drawn to the river, and reaching it I saw Lena push- 
 ing her boat off from the opposite shore. I sprang 
 into my own boat and hurried to her. In a few excited 
 words she told L'^r story. 
 
 When Mr. Hart left me the evening before he went 
 at once to Lena and arranged to take her to the city the 
 following morning. But Pinkie, the housemaid, over- 
 heard a conversation between Mr. Hart and his sister 
 and lost no time in communicating the same to Lena. 
 
 Upon hearing of this I said to Lena : 
 
 '* Go home at once. Pack a trunk with what you 
 most prize and most need, and wait until I come. 
 Your father has broken faith with me." 
 
 I entered Mr. Hart's house fully determined to say 
 nothing which I would ever regret having said. But 
 his first word angered me, and the remembrance of my 
 words on that morning is a sorrow in my life. Bush- 
 ing from the room I met Lena in the hall. 
 
 *' I am all ready," she said, without the least sign 
 of agitation, '* all but saying good-bye to papa." 
 
 At that moment Mr. Hart stepped into the hall, and 
 turned to Lena a face crimson with rage. She moved 
 towards him, but he thrust her away. 
 
 " Begone! begone, ungrateful girl !" he shouted, and 
 hurrying into the library closed the door. 
 
 "Now, dear," I said, '* choose for yourself. Will 
 you go with me. or will you stay with your father ?" 
 
OLOUDS QATHBR AND BRBAK 
 
 108 
 
 " I must go where my heart goes," she answered. 
 Having embraced her aunt, who was weeping 
 bitterly, she put her hand in mine and left her father's 
 house. 
 
 My boat rowed easily, and we soon found ourselves 
 out in the bay. It was but a short distance to the 
 dock at which we were to take the lake boat. The 
 distance was soon covered, and we embarked with our 
 baggage on the Oriana. The bay was smooth and 
 the movement of the barge was as quiet and regular 
 as the breathing of a sleeping babe. But the sun went 
 down behind an angry looking cloud, and the captain 
 said to the wheelsman : 
 
 *' Keep well to larboard !" 
 
 *' Ay, ay, sir ! " was the answer. 
 
 And we steamed into the lake. 
 
 At ten o'clock the storm broke with a roar like dis- 
 tant thunder, followed by a strange noise like the fan- 
 ning of innumerable wings in the air. Headinp* south 
 by south-west, the Oriana was already leaning lee- 
 ward, and as the storm had rapidly moved towards the 
 north, it struck her broad-side, and with such fury 
 that a light ship would certainly have gone down 
 under it. A wild cry came from the cabin passengers, 
 and a few profane words from the crew, while the 
 captain shouted: 
 
 '♦Starboard!" 
 
 The ship paused and trembled as if dreading the 
 ordeal of meeting the storm. Then came a stagger 
 and a plu-^.ge, and we saw her forelights rise high in 
 air as the brave ship breasted the waves. 
 
lOi 
 
 OHAON GRR 
 
 Oi he went, through the night, into the very heart 
 of the storm. 
 
 The Oriana had made many a prosperous voyage in 
 her day. A black sky and a rough sea had been a fine 
 setting for her, as a dark background often enhances 
 the beauty of works of art. But now an unworthy 
 craft with her range lights out, urged on by the piti- 
 less storm, bore down upon her with such speed and 
 force that escape was impossible, and the Oriana 
 received her fatal stab midships. 
 
 While the Cordelia, on her return trip, was plough- 
 ing her way through the storm, her officers spied one 
 of our lightrt. Coming nearer, several lights could be 
 seen, and they swayed to and fro like lanterns carried 
 by drunkards. Then over the black waters we sent 
 the cry of a ship in distress. 
 
 The Oriana was a steam barge with accommodation 
 for several passengers. She was carrying a load of 
 lumber, so the crew apprehended little danger from 
 her collision with the guilty craft. But the storm 
 grew in its fury, and the water poured into the hold 
 of the ship so rapidly that when the Cordelia arrived 
 all hope of saving her was gone. She swayed and 
 groaned in her death agon/. Then came a crash and 
 a wild scream from the passengers, as the water-log- 
 ged boat parted. Cries for help, prayers and oaths 
 mingled with the shouts of the officers. 
 
 Not long before the crash came, the ship had cast 
 anchor. At this time Lena and I were in the bow of 
 the boat, clinging to the bulwarks. An office^ called 
 for someone to take a message aft, and Lena said, 
 
 ■^ 
 
CLOUDS GATHIR AMD BRHAK 
 
 106 
 
 II 
 
 Go, Chaon !" With difficult j I made my way to the 
 stem of the ship, but before I left it the barge broke. I 
 made a frantic rush for the deck load, but a sailor 
 seized my arm and the deck load floated away. Then 
 the bow was carried leeward, farther and farther from 
 us into the blacker midnight. 
 
 **AUfe-boat! A life-boat!" I cried. 
 
 "Are you mad, sir?" shouted the second mate, 
 holding to my face a red light. '* To* might as well 
 look for purity in a pig sty as for life-boats or anything 
 else, exceptin' death, to-night. Give a hand there wi' 
 them planks." 
 
 Hope dies hard in the heart of a lover, and when the 
 Cordelia blew a shrill blast from her whistle, hope 
 breathed again. 
 
 The Cordelia was a large propeller, and was light. 
 This made the work of transferring to her the Oriana^s 
 passengers dangerous in the extreme, and at first 
 seemingly impossible. She was brought beside the 
 wreck, but towered above it in awful grandeur. The 
 storm was at its height and it was only by the aid of 
 artificial lights and the electric flashes that anything 
 was accomplished. Planks were made ready, and 
 whenever the immense waves brought the wreck and 
 the propeller on something like a level, the passengers 
 and officers crossed, upon the planks, to the Cordelia. 
 
 *' There's hope yet, hope yet," said the captain of the 
 propeller. '' If we can reach the bow before it goes to 
 nieces we can save all hands." 
 
 As she was bearing down upon the Oriana, the 
 Cordelia had made ready her tow line, expecting to 
 

 106 
 
 OHAON ORB 
 
 tow US to shore. But when the barge broke some 
 one blundered. The last sailor having been safely 
 transferred, the Cordelia gave the signal for turning ; 
 but it was found that the tow line had become 
 entangled in the wheel. Then our own danger was 
 imminent, for the propeller, under pressure of steam, 
 rolled from side to side close to the anchored wreck. 
 The scene was indescribable. My brain reeled and my 
 heart turned to stone. In every sound of the night I 
 heard Lena's cries. Then faith staggered. My 
 spiritual darkness was as dense as the natural dark- 
 ness. I called upon God to save Lena, but no answer 
 came, no message fraught with a Heavenly Father ^ 
 love and pity. It was night in my soul, a night filled 
 with horrible sights and sounds. God had turned his 
 face from me in anger, as my natural father had done 
 years and years before, when our garden at home was 
 the scene of the black hour of my childhood. 
 
 As soon as the officers of the Cordelia were made 
 aware of the situation, the steam was shut off and 
 when the storm had abated somewhat the work of 
 cutting the line was commenced. At daybreak we 
 were ready for departure, but not a trace was seen of 
 the Oriana. 
 
 The Captain unlocked for me his room, and there I 
 lived my dark hour alone. She was gone, my love, 
 my light, my life, and I prayed only that God would 
 turn from me His look of anger, would say to my soul, 
 '' Be not dismayed ; I am thy God." I prayed until 
 sunrise, then something like peace oame into my heart, 
 and the faith which once had been a joy was now a 
 
CLOUDS GATHER AMD BRBAK 
 
 107 
 
 consolation. Then I remembered the words Katie 
 had once spoken as we two sat together at home : 
 
 " I'm old an' grey now, Laddie darlin', but before I 
 had seen asmany summers as you've seen the brightest 
 of all lives went out, washed out, Laddie, by one 
 swellin' wave o' the sea. But all the waves of all the 
 seas in the hull world can't drown true love, never» 
 liaddie, never ? The sea aint got no power over spirts. 
 It can wreck a ship but it can't wreck a soul. It can 
 hold the body, but it can't hold the spirt. No lands 
 nor seas, not death itself, can sep'rate hearts that 
 heaven's joined. Lands an' seas an' the deep gulf 
 between time and eternity is all bridged by true love, 
 and over that bridge my spirt's crossin' an' crossin' an 
 
 crossm 
 
 > j> 
 
XIV. 
 
 •■I 
 
 ORBBN PASTURES AND STILL WATERS. 
 
 i'J 
 
 
 
 }?SfSA tS^^i t 
 
 
 
 T 
 
 tt 
 
 H£ tow lino having been cut, we were ti\ken 
 back to the port at which Lena and I had 
 embarked, and there I found Lena's father. 
 Where's my child ? Where's my child? " he cried. 
 Where ? " I answered bitterly. * ' Beyond the reach 
 of your cruel bondage, and your fiendish rage ! " 
 
 ''He seized my arm frantically, saying "For 
 heaven's sake, man, have pity ! If you knew all you 
 would forgive me. Oh, I loved her so ! " And he 
 wept like a child. 
 
 Taking his hand I asked him to com?) to the room 
 assigned to me in the hotel. But at this point the 
 clerk brought me the daily paper and I read : 
 
 " LAST NIGHT'S DISASTER." 
 
 "no lives lost." 
 
 il I 
 
 »» 
 
 (( 
 
 the oriana a total wreck.' 
 good offices of the cordelia and evening star." 
 
 Then followed an account of our rescue by the Cor- 
 delia^ and of the almost miraculous rescue by the 
 E vetting Star of those on the bow of the Oriana. 
 
 The first train that left the pert took Mr. Hart and 
 me to the city at which the Evening /Star had landed 
 her precious cargo. 
 
 On the journey Lena's father said to me : 
 
OLOU»S GATHIR AND BREAK 
 
 100 
 
 ii 
 
 Your ready and noble forgiveness of an unwar- 
 rantable outburst of passion on my part, which but for 
 the intervention of a merciful Providence, would have 
 cost you and Lftna your lives, makes me bold to tell 
 you something oi^ my history. It is '\ short story. 
 
 "When I was u young man— younger than you— I 
 loved one who promised to be my wife. But I was 
 poor then and her father forced her to marry a rich 
 man who killed her with stern looks and sterner 
 words. She heard her baby cry, then, struggling with 
 her weakness, said : 
 
 '* Save my child from him ! Save my baby! " and 
 died. 
 
 *' You often speak of Katie Graham. It was she — 
 God bless her— who nursed Lena's mother. It was 
 she who found a home for the babe where it was hid- 
 den for nearly a year. Then Grace and I took a house 
 and took the child. From that day until this I have 
 loved and lived for Lena. More than daughter is she 
 to me, for she has her mother's eyes and hair, and 
 when she laughs I look up thinking to see Gertrude. 
 But she is yours now. Deal gently with her and 
 never reveal to her my secret until I am laid 
 beside her mother. The wretch who robbed me of my 
 treasure died abroad years ago." 
 
 When we reached the city we found Lena in the 
 General Hospital, having been ministered to by skilful 
 and sympathetic attendants, and having received news 
 of my safety. When we entered her room, she rose 
 from the sofa on which she was resting, and greeted 
 us with a merriment and cheer which were as much a 
 
110 
 
 CHAON OBR 
 
 part of her as were the gold of her hair and the violet 
 of her eye. 
 
 " ' All's well that ends well,' " she laughed, while a 
 sudden crimson glow in her cheeks fought a hattle 
 with the pallor which had resulted from a long night 
 of physical and mental suffering. Then the tide of 
 my joy reached high water mark— a tide which from 
 that day to this has known no ebb. The morning 
 dawned to me when I read of Lena's rescue, but when 
 I held her once more ia my arms the sun rose with a 
 golden glory that filled the present and sent its radi- 
 ance on and on to the end of time. How unlike the 
 feverish tension of my old love were the repose and 
 fulfilment of the new ! I;8na was not a spirit strayed 
 from some magical realm to enslave my own ; not an 
 intellectual magnet with no office but to hold ; not 
 the incarnation of the beauty and subtle power of hell, 
 sent forth on a mission of death. She was part of my 
 life, part of the new life to which I had awakened in 
 answer to Katie's prayers. Her spirit ' ame, pure, 
 from the God who gave it, and met my own by His 
 Divine will. Her mind was a treasure-house of life- 
 giving truths, the birth-place of wonderful thoughts. 
 Her face was the home of beauty, fresh from its trans- 
 lucent fountain. Her body was " the temple of the 
 Holy Ghost." 
 
 Love sang its sweet song ecstatically— the theme 
 of the symphony of our heart's music which, awakened 
 by a Master Hand, has grown in fulness and 
 richness of harmonies, swelling now to an almost 
 overpowering crescendo as I glance from this page to 
 
ORBBN PA8TURBS AMD STILL WATERS. 
 
 Ill 
 
 thf dear delight of my heart and home. And the final 
 chords will be struck only to modulate from the music 
 of earth to that of heaven. 
 
 Music, music everywhere ! Nature had reached the 
 final movement in her Symphony of the Seasons. 
 Here and there the bubbling water broke through a 
 frozen stream and ran some soft horn passage, while 
 far away the changeless sea gave out a deep bass 
 tremolo. The moon shone to us an oboe melody of 
 great beauty, and the stars flashed the silver notes of 
 the flute. The crusted snow sparkled the touch of the 
 triangle, and the December night winds played the 
 part of the violins. The whole world vibrated to har- 
 monies of love, joy and thanksgiving, as Mr. Hart, 
 his sister, Lena and I were v/elcomed to my father's 
 house to spend our first Christmas together. Then the 
 light of moon and of stars was eclipsed by the brighter 
 light in the eyes of all, and the music of nature was 
 unheard amid the fervently breathed eloquence of love 
 from lips that smiled. The brilliantly lighted rooms 
 we.*e dressed in flowers and sprays of holly. Draperies 
 of crimson and gold, stirred by a passer by, wafted the 
 fragrance with which the air was laden. Every one 
 was happy. As Mr. Hart, his sister and Father were 
 examining Mother's choicest flowers, Mr. Hart said 
 to mj* father : 
 
 "This is one of the happiest days of my life. With- 
 out robbing me of mine you have gained another 
 daughter, while I have gained a son." 
 
 Jasper forgot to be serious, and gave way to a 
 merriment that surprised every one, excepting Cos- 
 
 'if' 
 
m 
 
 aRBBN PA8TURB8 AND STILL WATERS 
 
 112 
 
 i 
 
 ■^■'il 
 
 
 monette. He shook my hand repeatedly, and was so 
 pronounced in his congratulations that I wickedly 
 accused him of expecting to receive more of Cosmon- 
 ette's love now that I was married. He replied that 
 Gosmonette's heart was larger than I gave it credit of 
 being. And when, at that moment, she turned towards 
 him, her beautiful face full of a tender but earnest 
 love, and placed her hand in his with a smile of 
 approval, I believed him. 
 
 Katie wept and wept, but insisted that she had 
 never been so near heaven in her life. 
 
 ^' Law to goodness ! " she whispered to me, " there's 
 some joys that is too big fur even the biggest souls. 
 An' ain't it queer how things shapes themselves, or is 
 shaped by a superior Bein' ! Laddie darlin', that sun- 
 beam o* yours is the very image of her mother who 
 died with her head leanin' on Katie's achin' heart. 
 Then, now an' again, say a lovin' word to her father, 
 fur he don't believe much in spirits, an' he'll be terrible 
 lonesome sometimes. But, Laddie darlin'! aint the 
 pastures green, an' aint the still waters clearer 'n 
 crystal, reflectin' the deep blue o' the beautiful heavens, 
 Laddie!" 
 
 Lena had never looked so animated, so lovely, not 
 even on her wedding day. I glanced from her to Cos- 
 monette as one would glance from a rose to a lily. 
 
 Mother still sat upon her throne as queen of our 
 home. It was to her energy, to her love of the artistic, 
 no less than to her love for us all that we were 
 indebted for the delight of our meeting. And when 
 dawned the day of days, it was Mother who, i^ith 
 
<*RBBN PASTURES AND STILL WATERS. 
 
 113 
 
 autumn in her years but with spring-time in her 
 heart, went to the piano and struck the glad chord 
 that awakened in our hearts and in our home a tide 
 of rapturous song : 
 
 " Glory to God in the Highest, 
 
 "Peace on earth, 
 
 " Good will towards men." 
 
 
 THE END. 
 
 ■■:>■