Master of the Vineyard

"Don't you remember your father at all?" asked Madame, with a sigh.

"I can't say that I do--that is, not before he died." The casket and the gloom of mourning had made its own vivid impression upon the child's sensitive mind. One moment stood out quite clearly, but he forebore to say so. It was when his mother, with the tears raining down her face, had lifted him in her arms and bade him look at the man who lay in the casket, oh, so cold and still.

The Passing of the Father

"Say good-bye to Father, dear," she had sobbed. "Is Father gone away?" he had asked, in childish terror, then she had strained him to her heart, crying out: "Just for a little while! Oh, if I could only believe it was for just a little while!"

The rest had faded into a mist of sadness that, for a long time, had not even begun to lift. When he found his mother in tears, as he often did after that, he went away quietly, knowing that she longed for "Father," who had gone away and never returned. Later, he used to sit on the top step of the big Colonial porch--a fragile little figure--waiting, through the long Summer afternoons, for the father who did not come.

Once, when his mother was so absorbed in her grief that she did not hear him come into the room, he had laid a timid, trembling hand upon her knee, saying: "Mother, if you will tell me where Father is, I will go and bring him back." But, instead of accepting the offer, she had caught him to her breast, sobbing, with a sudden rush of impassioned prayer: "Dear God, no--not that!"

Time, as always, had done his merciful healing, which, though slow, is divinely sure. Madame was smiling, now, at some old memory that had come mysteriously out of the shadow, leaving all bitterness behind. She had finished mending the lace and had laid it aside. Alden took it up, awkwardly, and looked at it.

Tired and Unhappy

"This for the strange woman," he said, teasingly, "and plain black or grey silk for me, though I am fain to believe that you love me best. Why is it?"

"Because," she responded, playfully, "you know me and love me, even without fuss and frills. For those who do not know us, we must put our best foot forward, in order to make sure of the attention our real merit deserves."