Page:Magdalen by J S Machar.pdf/17

 is there in motion, over its empty pleasure, its sorrow, pride, misery, passion, hypocrisy love, over this weak, puny, ephemeral and human “ego,” the hollow brass sends forth into the vault of heaven its Ave Maria!

At the corner of two crooked streets rises a freshly white-washed house, towering by a whole story above the red roofs of its neighbors. The blinds are are drawn in all the windows; a dead silence is everywhere. Only above, in a dormer window, are seen a white head and two folded, sere hands, those of an old woman who, praying, looks up to the ruddy clouds. A beautiful contrast:below,—the wild, whirling, untrammelled life;here,—its end. The white hair, the prayer, and

Like some sentimental poet, I came very near spinning out a beautiful simile, but fortunately the old woman, blinded by the splendor of the sky, looked down upon the whirling life below. Her kindly old eyes suddenly flashed with surprise, and her dry,