Читать книгу Without a Home - Edward Payson Roe - Страница 13

Mildred had not as yet impressed people as a strong character. On the contrary, she had seemed peculiarly gentle and yielding. Vinton Arnold, however, in his deep need had instinctively half guessed the truth, for her influence was like that of a warm day in spring, undemonstrative, not self-asserting, but most powerful. The tongue-tied could speak in her presence; the diffident found in her a kindly sympathy which gave confidence; men were peculiarly drawn toward her because she was so essentially womanly without being silly. Although as sprightly and fond of fun as most young girls of her age, they recognized that she was perfectly truthful and loyal to all that men—even bad men—most honor in a woman. They always had a good time in her society, and yet felt the better and purer for it. Life blossomed and grew bright about her from some innate influence that she exerted unconsciously. After all there was no mystery about it. She had her faults like others, but at heart she was genuinely good and unselfish. The gentle mother had taught her woman's best graces of speech and manner; nature had endowed her with beauty, and to that the world always renders homage.

There are thousands of very pretty girls who have no love for beauty save their own, which they do their best to spoil by self-homage. To Mildred, on the contrary, the beautiful was as essential as her daily food, and she excelled in all the dainty handicrafts by which women can make a home attractive. Therefore her own little sanctum had developed like an exquisite flower, and had become, as we have said, an expression of herself. An auctioneer, in dismantling her apartment, would not have found much more to sell than if he had pulled a rose to pieces, but left intact it was as full of beauty and fragrance as the flower itself. And yet her own hands must destroy it, and in a brief time she must exchange its airy loveliness for a bare room in a farmhouse. After that the future was as vague as it was clouded. The pretty trifles were taken down and packed away, with tears, as if she were laying them in graves.