Miss Evelina did not reply; she only leaned more heavily against the wall.
"Lady," he continued, "perhaps you think I do not know. You may think I'm talking blindly, but there are few sorrows in the world that I have not seen face to face. Those I have not had myself, my friends have had, and I have been privileged to share with them. The sorrows of the world are not so many--they are few, and, in essence, the same.
"It's very strange, I'm thinking. The little laughing, creeping days go by us, then the awkward ones that bring us the first footsteps, then childhood comes, and youth, and then maturity. But the days have begun to grow feeble before one learns how to meet them; how to take the gifts humbly, scorning none, and how to make each day give up its secret balm. Memory, the angel who stands at the portal of Yesterday, has always an inscrutable smile. She keeps for us so many things that we would be glad to spare, and pushes headlong into Yesterday so much that we fain would keep. I do not yet know all the ways of Memory--I only know that she means to be kind."
"Kind!" repeated Evelina. Her tone was indescribably bitter.
"Yes," returned the Piper, "Memory means to be kind--she is kind. I have said that I do not know her ways, but of that I am sure. Lady, I would that you could let go of the day you are holding back. Cast her from you, and let her go into the Yesterday from which you have kept her so long. Perhaps Memory will be kinder to you then, for, remember, she stands at the gate."
"I cannot," breathed Evelina. "I have tried and I cannot let her go!"
"Yes," said the Piper, very gently, "you can. 'T is that, I'm thinking, that has set your life all wrong. Unclasp your hands from her rough garments, cease to question her closed eyes. Take her gift and the balm that infallibly comes with it; meet To-day with kindness and To-morrow with a brave heart. Oh, Spinner in the Shadow," he cried, his voice breaking, "I fain would see you a Spinner in the Sun!"
"No," she sighed, "I have been in the dark too long. There is no light for me."
"There is light," he insisted. "When you admit the shadow, you have at the same time acknowledged the light."
Evelina shook her head. "Too late," she said, despairingly; "it is too late."
"Ah," cried the Piper, "if you could only trust me! I have helped many a soul into the sun again."