Athalie

* * * * *

It was a fearfully hot day in town, and she waited until evening to go

back to Spring Pond.

When she arrived, Mrs. Connor had a cablegram for her from Clive

saying that he was sailing and would see her before the month ended.

Late into the night she looked for him in her crystal but could see

nothing save a blue and tranquil sea and gulls flying, and always on

the curved world's edge a far stain of smoke against the sky.

Her mother was in her room that night, seated near the window as

though to keep the vigil that her daughter kept, brooding above the

crystal.

It was Friday, the twenty-first, and a new moon. The starlight was

magnificent in the August skies: once or twice meteors fell. But in

the depths of her crystal she saw always a sunlit sea and a gull's

wings flashing.

Toward morning when the world had grown its darkest and stillest, she

went over to where her mother was sitting beside the window, and knelt

down beside her chair.

And so in voiceless and tender communion she nestled close, her golden

head resting against her mother's knees.

Dawn found her there asleep beside an empty chair.