Carolina Lee

"Only too well," sighed Carolina.

"Then I shall want you, and want you terribly."

"I shall always be here, dearest."

"That is what comforts me," said the child, the mystic light dying out of her eyes. "It is what comforts me about the whole thing. I know it will always be there when I want it. I have talked to Emmeline about it. Even little Gladys taught me her hymn."

And the child and the woman looked into each other's eyes, knowing that their souls were akin, and that the witchery of the twilight hour had opened floodgates closed by day, but which opened when the soul felt the need of speech.

"I am glad you told me, Cynthia," said Carolina. "The only answer to all of life's puzzles, I have found in this awakened sense of mine, which will surely come to you some day. Remember it when the waters grow too deep."

"The answer to all life's puzzles," echoed Cynthia.

"Sing, child," said Carolina.

And Cynthia, whose voice was like the rippling water and the sounding of silver bells, began to sing what Gladys called her hymn:

"'And o'er earth's troubled, angry sea
I see Christ walk,
And come to me and tenderly,
Divinely talk!'"

As the child sang, every feeling in every heart melted, until only love remained, and, when she finished, Kate cried out:

"It's all over! I d-don't hate Mrs. Eddy any more. I-I've been healed of it by Cynthia's singing."

The child's lovely voice had so sadly shaken Carolina's composure that, under cover of the half-darkness, she rose and made her way quietly to a little hall which led to a private staircase, intending to gain her own room and recover herself before her guests began to take leave.

As the voices rose and fell, she moved nearer and nearer the door, too intent upon her own ends to notice that Moultrie La Grange had likewise detached himself from the fireside group and disappeared.

As she finally stepped behind a group of palms which concealed the door, she sprang lightly into the dark passage and flung herself headlong into the arms of Moultrie La Grange, who had come in that way to intercept her flight.

He was not slow to take advantage of the very opportunity he had come to seek, and, after one brief struggle, so slight that it was like the fluttering of a bird, she hid her face in his shoulder, with a little sob in which relief and joy and love were mingled.

He said nothing, only held her close and kissed her hair, until her arms stole upward and curled around his neck, and she whispered:

"Moultrie, dear, dear Moultrie, will you forgive me for what I said to you that day?"

"I have nothing to forgive, dear heart. You only said it because you loved me."

Tears filled her eyes, and she drew closer to him, whispering:

"I knew that first night in New York at the opera-that this hour would come-and just now, while Cynthia was singing, I knew that-you would understand-everything!"

"I would not have dared to speak to you again, dearest," he answered, "if I had not emptied my soul of self and got rid of that which separated us. But-I have been working since you showed me where I stood with you, and I, too, under the spell of that child's voice, have come to the point where I can say that, if you think I am capable of it, – and worthy to be the successor of such a man as your idolized father, – I would be proud to complete his work on Abraham Lincoln, and, with your consent, we will call it 'The Debt of the South to Lincoln.'"

For reply, Carolina lifted his hand to her lips and kissed it. She could make no reply to such a surrender as that, but in that hour she lifted her hero to a pinnacle, whence he never was dislodged.

THE END