A CHRISTMAS TOKEN.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XX, Issue III, 15 January 1898, Page 73

A CHRISTMAS TOKEN.

By

M. Dick.

The afternoon was quite cold, but the sun was shining brightly, and Ruth walked with Robert to the end of the low porch that they might say good-bye there, where they had often said good-night in the old days. •I wonder, Ruth,’ said Robert, "when we shall stand here together again?' ‘Not for many long years, I fear.’ she replied, 'if ever again.’ • “If ever again.’ ” he echoed slowly. Then he added quickly, ‘Yes, Ruth, I shall see you again. I am going far away, but"l shall return. Will you be waiting for me, Ruth?’ •Robert.' and her face grew very white as she spoke, 'I may always be here just as I am now. but I shall not t>e waiting for you; you must not come back for me. You know how weak and ill I am. The physicians say that I shall never be well: they even say that I may soon become a helpless invalid.’ ‘Listen to me. Ruth. I will work hard, and I think that in a few years I can have a home ready for you. and I have not the least doubt but that the warmer climate will soon restore your lost health. But. Ruth, the fact that you may become an invalid need not prevent our marriage. I shall devote my life to you: I should find my greatest happiness in caring for you.’ •No. Robert.’ she said, fit cannot be: I should be only a burden to you. I try to be content, and sometimes I seem to rise far above my sorrow; but again all my old ambition and longing for a broader, larger life comes surging back and I rebel with all my strength against my lot. It is not the giving up of my love that causes me the deepest pain. It is the knowledge that this lonely old farmhouse must always be my home, that those blue, bare hills must mark the boundary of my world, and that I , who had meant to do so much, must sit with idle hands and let my life go by. empty. For some moments Robert did not speak: then he said, ‘Ruth, do you not love me?’ Ruth turned and stood for a moment looking away over the western hills to where the sun was just sinking out of sight. Then she raised her white face and. placing her hands in his. murmured: ‘Yes. I love you. I love you so much, Robert, that I am able to stand here and break my heart by refusing to become your wife, because I know that it would burden your life.’ ‘Will you give me some little thing that I can always keep in remembrance of you; something that shall be a token of your love?’ A heap of dead leaves had gathered in a sheltered nook at their feet, and as Robert spoke a gust of wind scattered these, revealing among them a small, perfect leaf of a bright crimson hue. without a blemish to show that it had been exposed to the winter snows.

Ruth stooped, and. picking it up said: ‘To-day is Christmas: let this little red leaf be your gift, and as I in my quiet life here shall try to live nobly, however narrow and careless those about me may be. so. Roliert. I hope that you. my one friend, out in the world, may be. among all its temptations and sin-stained people, just as perfect, just as pure as was this little bit of brightness among the dead leaves.’

The years passed, and Ruth's regret for her lost happiness was becoming less keen, when one day she received a letter from Robert. It had been years since he had written to her. Ruth had refused to correspond. She did not mean that Robert's life should l>e hampered by thoughts of her. It would be well, she tried to tell herself, >f he should forget her and marry someone else. But the sacrifice was greater than even Ruth could make, for of late a great hope had sprung up in her heart. Although never quite "ell. not strong enough to go out among the world's workers as she had hoped to do. she was not by any means helpless. 'I should be far from a burden to Robert.’ she sometimes whispered. So it was with a great hope and gladness that she sat down that dreary autumn afternoon to read Robert’s letter. It was such a letter as one might write to a very dear and trusted friend. It told her of his great success in his chosen work, of the strange, unusual power he seemed R ossess moving people’s hearts. And then followed page after page in praise of a beautiful, cultured woman

who was soon to be his wife. ‘I love her, Ruth, my friend,' he wrote, ‘love her as I did not think it possible for a man to love. The whole world is changed to me since she has come into my life. And I come to you in this, my greatest happiness, as I would turn to you in a great sorrow. You will understand what I feel, but cannot express, as no one else, perhaps not even my beautiful Margaret, can.’

Aud Ruth, when she had read the letter through and had put it very tenderly away—Robert's hand had held it—turned, as was her wont when deeply moved, and looked away toward the cold, barren hills. They seemed the only thing to which she could look in her desolate life.

“The something that we both thought was love was only pity and friendship on his part. Had he cared for me as I cared for him, he could not have forgotten,’ she murmured, bitterly. And going about from day to day, seeing only those lonely hills which bounded her world, the bitterness did not go out of her heart.

One Christmas Day a woman, old, and feeble, and ill, was sitting in the cheerless farmhouse. On the late afternoon a little girl laid a letter in the wrinkled hands.

‘Read it,’ the woman said, handing it back, and turning her sightless eyes in the direction of the girl, who opened it and read in a loud voice, for Ruth was growing very deaf now. ‘Dear Ruth: ‘You have doubtless heard before this of Robert’s death. He wished me to tell you that it was to you he owed all of good he ever accomplished: that you were the inspiration back of all his greatest-work, lie lias often spoken of Ruth, in that little farmhouse among the hills, struggling, against so many disappointments, to live her life well, patiently doing there whatever her hand found to do. when she had so longed for a broader, fuller life. Many times have I seen him take from its case a little reel leaf and say—“This is typical of Ruth’s life. I promised to keep this little token and to make my life beautiful and spotless as was it.” Then would come his mightiest sermons, and hundreds of listeners would be thrilled.

‘I think his life was all you eould have wished; it was grand, beautiful, noble.

‘Dear Ruth. I shall never see you in this world. lam almost at the end of the long journey now. but while I live I shall keep, as the most precious thing in all the world to me, a little red leaf, mounted, by my dead husband's hand, in a most costly casing, and labelled also by that dear hand. “A Christmas Token.”—Robert's Wife.’ After the letter had been read Ruth rose and groped her way, very slowly and feebly, for she, too. was almost at the end of the journey, out to the old porch where she had stood to say good bye to Robert, more than half a century before. Clasping her hands, and turning her darkened eyes away toward the hills, she said aloud, "‘And this is why I have lived. I am glad, glad, that Robert never knew of the despair I have felt.’ And for the first time since that other letter had come, long years before, the bitterness that had crept into her heart then died completely away: and as she stood there the setting sun seemed to cast a halo about the grey head, and from somewhere up among the naked boughs a little red leaf came floating down, and rested upon the thin, wrinkled hands.