Page:Hope--Sophy of Kravonia.djvu/219

JOYFUL OF HEART have set it down as though every word of it were precious—set it down as minutely as she chronicled the details of the critical hours to which fate was soon to call her.

Yet, was she wrong? Days of idleness are not always the emptiest; life may justify its halts; our spirits may mount to their sublimest pitch in hours of play. At least, the temper of that holiday, and her eager prizing and recording of it, show well the manner of woman that she was—her passionate love of beauty, her eager stretching out to all that makes life beautiful, her spirit, sensitive to all around, taking color from this and that, reflecting back every ray which the bounty of nature or of man poured upon it, her great faculty of living. She wasted no days or hours. Ever receiving, ever giving, she spent her sojourn in a world that for her did much, yet never could do enough, to which she gave a great love, yet never seemed to herself to be able to give enough. Perhaps she was not wrong when she called herself a pagan. She was of the religion of joy; her kindest thought of the grave was that haply through some chink in its dark walls there might creep one tiny sunbeam of memory.

They rode home together as the sun was setting— a sun of ruddy gold, behind it one bright, purple cloud, the sky beyond blue, deepening almost into black. When Praslok came in sight, she laid her hand on his with a long-drawn sigh.

"We have been together to-day," she said. "That Will be there always. Yes, the sun and the world were made for us this day—and we have been worthy."

He pressed her hand. "You were sent to teach me what joy is—the worth of the world to men who 201