WAYSIDE FLOWERS.

Otago Witness, Issue 2621, 8 June 1904, Page 76

WAYSIDE FLOWERS.

By Irexe IxGKAir,

THE OLD MAID. In distant villages and solitudes remote, Where winds have wsfted the barbed seeds of love, And birds of passage scattered them in their flight; .. , There they take root and grow m silence, and 1 in silence perish ; "Who hears the falling of the forest leaf? And vv-ho takes note of every flower that dies ? —The Spanish Student. "Essie! Es^ie!'' The voice came through, the vineshad'Oived ■window of a neat suburban cottage. "Yes, brother. Coming," came the reply in a girl's clear tone«. "Good-night, Harry, I must go now."' '" Good-night, Efeiie. Will you be out to-morrow night?" '' Oh, yes ; if my brother is ■vrell enough to leave alone for a little. I enjoy our little chats so much."' "Esa-ie! Es^ie! 1 ' Essie Warnc ran lightly into the sitting room, where laer brother was lying on a couch. They were all the world to each other, these two. Though the only two in the family, Ernest Wame was Essie's senior by 13 years. He had been an invalid all his life. Their father had died while Essie was a baby, and two years before our story opens their mother had followed her husband, praying Essie, with motherly fondness for her first-born and afflicted one, to stay with her brother and tend him as she hmself had done. E&sie found no difficulty in promising to care for the one she loved be&t in all tha world, and their common loss had drawn brother and sister very close together. She was now 21, and as she seated herself on a low stool beside her brother and took up the Bible that had been her mother's to read the customary evening chapter, her happy eyes held the calm of j summer skies, and the lamplight touched I her brown hair into gold, us though angels' ; kisses had been pressed there. j The chapter finished, both were silent i for a time ; then Ernest said : " Essie, I j hope I did not disturb you to-night when \ I called ; but I was so very weary." | " No, dear," was the reply, "of course- j you can never disturb me. I was just ' having a chat with Mr Woods. He is such ] a bright companion ; you must have him ' come to see you, Ernest." ] There was nothing in Essie's words to cause the sigh that was Ernest's only answer. Perhaps it was the tell-tale blush that rose to her cheek. When Essis took her brother's supper to him an hour later, he did not turn to greet '• her as usual. She leaned over him, think- .; ing to waken him, and was surprised to ' find that his eyes were wet with unshed tears. Then, in a flash, she knew — no need , to ask the cause — her woman's heart told her. She kissed her brother tenderly, and stole silently from the room. That night the moon looked into two j rooms in Woodbine Cottage. First, it I caressed the thin, pate face of the sick nian, that wore in repose that beautiful sad smile of unselfishness that is so much sadder than tears, and so much, more beautiful than any smile of mere earthly happiness. It then crept to another window, and flooded with golden light Essie's upturned face and trembung lips, that whispered to the blank, silent sky: "Yes, mother, darling ; I'll stay with him always —always." It carried its calm, beautiful | light into her troubled soul, and kissed her I aching eye'ids, until they, too, drooped in ] slumber. • . a < " Essie ! Essie !" The voice comes again, but it is weaker now, for 10 years have gone by sinoe Essie stood' in the little porch with Harry Woods. Quickly and silently sh& glides to her 'brother's bedside. 1 : " Essie, don't leave me. Stay with, me I for a little while. Only a little while, i Essie. I'm — so — tired !" j The eyelids droop again in slumber ; but in a few minutes they open. "Sister," again comes the weak voice, "are you afraid to stay alone with me to-night? Someway, I can't bear the thought of a stranger on this last night — this last night, Essie." Silently she presses her trembling lips to his pale brow, and he is content. But why draw the curtain from such sacred scenes, the very memory of which is enshrined within that inner soul, where none may enter except oiu-selves andi Christ? Alone? Let us leave brother and &ister with their God, for surely He is very near them tonight. The next week a slight woman, dressed in black, boarded the train with a few of her household treasures. Woodbine Cottage was put up for sate, and soon the busy little town forgot that ever a tragedy had been enacted there — if even it had known it. Essie soon found that she had made a mistake in leaving her old home for a quiet country place. Her thought had been io get away from the old scenes — she did not stop to think that she was also leaving the friends who had known her from childhood', and who, consequently, Avould always love and respect her. Soon she heard little snatches of backbiting talk. '"Who is she? She has a history, that is plain. What can it be? How is it she has no friends?" The people who started these queries, \n a mysterious voice, and suggested uncharitable replies, were too well-bred to hint them in her hearing 5 but others' were nofc so considerate, and often she went home with aching heart and tingling ears. It was long before the truth dawned on her, but it came at last, andl almost crushed her — the lot of an "old maid" must be hers-~suspicion, scorn, scarce-veiled insult; lonelinessj ajld, hardest of all, pitying loud<:ue.ss. "~ .

After that she kept to herself, scarce speaking to an3'one, and then she was "that cross, spiteful old thing. Ihey are all alike, them old maids." With patient resignation she bowed h&r aching neck to the yoke, until another ten years had crawled slowiy by. The constant strain on her sensitive nature had aged her beyond her years. She was not feeling well, and had strayed up the street, more for the sense of human companionship than for the purpose of shopping. Ifc was dark when she returned, her heart bleeding afresh at some unkind remarks she had heard passed by some girls at the window of a shop in ■which she was being served. Somehow, lately, things hurt her more than they had been vised to do. The pain at her heart had become physical, as well as mental. She lighted her lamp and tiied to read, but even the Divine Word frst its power to-night — the sound of those cruel -words shut them out. She crossed the room to a little writing table, but how &he trembled. She had to lean on a chair for support. Kneeling down, she took out and untied a little parcel. It contained two photographs and a spray of withered woodbine. A flood of memories swept over her. She was again standing in the little vine-covered porch, and her brother vras calling, "Essie! Essie!" " Yc-s, brother. Coming." She tried to rise to her feet. The action brought her to hey senses. She -was in her own little sitting room again ; but surely that was her bi other calling? Again she tried to rise, but strong aims detained her. She raised her face, and found that, Harry was bending over her, with, oh, what a tender light in his eyes! " Sweetheart," he whispered, "ily noble darling ; this time we will go together. Come." When the neighbours found her she was still kneeling beside the little writing table. A radiant smile illumined her still upturned face, and in her cold fingers she held two photographs — one of herself when she was young, the other of a handsome man. Also a spray of woodbine, brown and withered, but fragrant still.