Page:The Diothas, or, A far look ahead (IA diothasorfarlook01macn).pdf/56

 as calmly, as if he were only a brother soon to return from college. By the merest chance, however, I happened to be a witness of their meeting after his return. Their manner was calm enough outwardly. But I read in their eyes what was to me a revelation of how much of long-repressed feeling can be expressed in one look,—trust, joy, love, beyond the power of words.

During the dinner my attention had been strongly attracted by an oil-painting that hung opposite me. It represented a beautiful girl standing on the verge of a cliff. With one hand she strove to restrain the disorder of her garments, blown by a furious gale. In the other she held on high a flaming torch, which cast a weird light upon her long auburn tresses streaming in the wind, and on a countenance where strangely blended love, terror, and resolution, mastering both terror and physical fatigue. The painting was evidently a masterpiece, or, at least, an excellent copy. Catching the eye of Esna, my host's daughter, I made inquiry as to the subject of the piece.

"Why, that is Esna Diotha," replied the girl, whom the question seemed, for some reason, greatly to surprise.

"Who, then, was Esna Diotha?" I inquired again, somewhat interested by the sound of the second name, and amused at the confidence with which the youthful mind assumes its knowledge to be universal property.

It is a strong testimony to the fine manners of those with whom I was sitting at table, that, at the moment when I put this question, I felt as much at home as if I had been an inmate of the house for years. My feeling was as if dining with old friends in a strange land. The surroundings are unwonted, yet soon cease to affect one. I was