A SILHOUETTE.

Taranaki Herald, Volume LXI, Issue 144082, 29 April 1913, Page 8

A SILHOUETTE.

(From' “Everyman.”)

She was a. pretty woman • and a charming one, and possessed sufficient of this world’s wealth to enjoy many excellent good things. Life, however, that had endpwed her so lavishly withheld tho one experience she craved. Suitors she had in plenty. Young poets praised her eyes, and asked nothing be tter than to kneel at her small feet. But tho woman was not satisfied, for sho desired to fall in love. It chancod on a blue, unclouded morning, insistent with tho promise of spring, that sho met a man unlike tho poets of her acquaintance. Tall, strong, tanned with the sun, fresh as tho wind that blows over tho sea, she straightway lost her heart to him.

Ho was a new experience, and sho felt that at last she had found the ono thing worth knowing. Tho man, having w'ork to do,, was sent to tho other side of the world, and in his absence she forgot her vision of happiness. Sho forgot his simplicity of, strength, that had seemed to her so splendid, and remembered ho was not skilled in tho turning of a phrase, and occasionally forgot that she was utterly adorable. ,

Love seemed to tho woman more unattainable than before, and she returned to the society of minor poets. Meanwhile the man worked early , and late, unmindful of weariness, careful only to save that ho might bo able, to give tho sunshine of his heart all she could desire when she was his. For that she would bo his wife was to him a sure and certain hope. His enterprises prospered, and at last she learnt the day of his return. The nows found her dispirited, and loft her dull. His prosperity affronted her; his success seemed a reproach. He no longer played a dominant part in her life, avoid of happiness, and she went to moot him as to a painful ordeal.

Tho train was signalled, and tho great platform was crowded; friends and relations waiting to greet these clear to them jostled against hurrying porters eager for baggage and tips. Everyone was on the tiptoe of exportation, and the woman wished sho could catch the contagion. A girl, flushed and tremulous, rati to the end of the platform; a young man paced nervously to and fro. If only .sho could foci with them that joy or sorrow would conic to her in the punishing train. . Sho did not §eo him at first. Sho looked unconsciously for a tall, presporous figure, with head hold an r J a look of victory on .his face —victory of which she was the spoil.

Ho saw her first and touched her gently on the am. lie was older, had gone grey, and in some strange tashion seemed to have lost his size. His face, no longer tanned, was worn and wistful; his eyes tilled with a hunger :and a longing such as she had never known. And as she met his gaze she knew the things that he had suffered, and that the work and the endurance wore for her. And a great sob rose in her throat. Sho forgot that she desired to love, and remembered only that she longed to comfort. And she out hexarms about his neck and kissed mm. '“Am i so changed?” he asked, reading her face. “t)on , t you care anymore? . I—l have lived only to meet you, Sunshine—my Sunshine!”

“Changed?” sho asked, between her tears "‘You’ve grown dearer, that’s all, .'..Oh, Dicl, Dick! I don’t think anything matters now I’ve got you.”