Page:The Granite Monthly Volume 7.djvu/97

 MAY-FLOWERS.

��luul earned consideraljle distinction in ihe Ikitish Academy by his picture of the " Dying Hercules." He was now in liis twenty-eighth year, full of ambition and hoDC. Edgar Somerton's heart fell as he thought of Miss Walker's heroic ideal, and wondered whether she had found it here. It was sometime before he saw her again ; but when ht' did so, she gave him a kind smile, and he greeted her at once. Had she news of her father and mother and the oth- ers in Cambridge ? Oh, yes, Susie had written ; they were having a delightful visit, and Charlie was so kind and so happy ; and she went on to tell him all about the spring festivities in Boston. It was all very gracious — this talk: liut oh, so far away from where his thoughts longed to be. But to-night, more than ever. Miss Walker seemed wrapped in a golden haze that like a necromancer's spell made her unap- l^roachable. She was like a summer cloud, he thought, and he a duskv mountain tarn : the cloud drifts past, and itself unchanged, changes the pic- ture in the depths of the lake, which lies fast bound, to dream of the cloud when it is gone. She looked upon him kindly, but like the cloud was ever far, (ar away.

"Would Miss Walker go with him to the refreshment room? She was sor- ry, but had promised to go with Mr. Morse. Mr. Morse appeared at this moment, and led the young lady away. An hour later Edgar was sitting in the south room, with his head against the cabinet, when he heard low voices on the opposite side, which he knew at once. Before it occurred to him that he was eaves-dropping, he had forgot- ten himself in the interest of what he heard.

"It was the picture of the "Dying Elercules," you said, Mr. Morse, that won you so high a place in the Acad- emy. Why did you choose so violent and gloomy a subject?"

"It is one that has always wrought upon my sympathy," was the response. " The old Greek mythology is every where full of eternal truth, which like

��Proteus appears in a thousand forms where you look for it least, [t seems to be the fate of every heroic })crson, who, like Hercules, sacrifices himself for his race, to sufler and die upon some mountain height, like Hercules, alone. Even the consciousne.ss of his own dignity seems to stead him little in the death-struggle of his last agony. Yet he has his reward with the gods."

"Ah," and there was a wondrous wistfulness in the tone, " I can never believe that all greatness must die. Can no one live to defy, in this world, the hopelessness of death?"

"Death is not hopeless," he replied, " even though we do not look beyond this world. We live and pass away, but we leave our spirits behind us, which never die ; and that is our re- ward."

"Your own hoj)es are high, Mr. Morse, and your eyes are fixed upon the stars. I know you will climb the mountain before you, but do you never shrink when you look up the stee]) ascent?"

"I shrink when I think of looking down ; so long as one looks upward he is safe. What I can accomplish I do not know ; no one can give more than himself, and only the end can prove the work. Death comes swiftly on. And yet," and the voice grew deeper, " and yet, with some one to cheer him with sympathy, and brighten his dark days with love, a man might almost hope to bid defiance to the specter of death. But it is only a woman's ten- derness that can make man immortal."

"And herself. It would be a wo- man's noblest life," was the low re- ply.

The voices sank lower, and were in- audible. It occurred to Edgar Som- erton, for the first time, that he was tres- passing on the grounds of confidence, and he walked moodily to the door, hardly knowing what he did. From there he could see Miss Walker sitting with downcast eyes, and Mr. Morse looking at her without a word. Sud- denly she looked up with a radiant face, and Edgar knew that the story

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