The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, No. 58, August, 1862

"A young girl's face," I said.

The doctor was looking at me, and not at the painting there. A little bit of confusion came,–I don't know why.

"Do you like it?" I ventured.

"I like it? I'm not the one to like it."

"Somebody does, then?"

"Of course. What did he paint it for, if he didn't like it?"

"I do not know of whom you are talking, at all," I said, a little vexed at this information-no-information style.

"You don't?" in a voice of the utmost astonishment.

"No. Is this all, for the sick lady? I think I ought to go to her."

"Of course you ought. It's a sad thing, this death in the house"; and Doctor Eaton picked up his hat, and opened the door.

Kate was waiting in the hall.

"Mr. Abraham thinks you'd better look in and see if it's well to have any watchers in there, before you go," she said.

"Well, light me in, then, Katie. You wait in there, if you please, Miss," to me; and I saw the two go to the front-room on the right.

A waft of something, it may have been the air that came out of that room, sent me back from the hall, and I shut the door behind me. It was several minutes before they came back. In the interim I had taken a long look at the face on the wall. It seemed too young to be very beautiful, and I couldn't help wishing that the artist had waited a year or two, until a little more of the outline of life had come to it; yet it was a sweet, loving face, with a brow as low and cool as Sophie's own, only it hadn't any shadow of an Aaron on it. I didn't hear the door open, I hadn't heard the sound of living thing, when some one said, close to me, as I was standing looking up at the face I've spoken of,–

"What are you doing?"

It was Mr. Axtell, and the voice was a prickly one.

"Is there any harm?" I said. "I'm only looking here,"–pointing to where my eyes had been before. "Who painted it?"

"An unknown, poor painter."

"Was he poor in spirit?"

"He is now, I trust."

A man that has variant voices is a cruel thing in this world, because one cannot help their coming in at some one of the gates of the heart, which cannot all be guarded at the same moment. "Poor in spirit?" "He is now, I trust." I felt decidedly vexed at this man before me for having such tones in his voice.

"Can I go up to Miss Axtell now?" I asked.

"In a moment, when Kate has shown Doctor Eaton out."

I picked up my powders and my illustrious book, and waited.

Kate came.

"The doctor says there's no need," she said, in her laconic way.

Kate, I afterwards learned, was the daughter of the farmer that Sophie heard Miss Axtell consoling for the loss of his wife, one day.

MY DAPHNE

My budding Daphne wanted scope
To bourgeon all her flowers of hope.

She felt a cramp around her root
That crippled every outmost shoot.

I set me to the kindly task;
I found a trim and tidy cask,

Shapely and painted; straightway seized
The timely waif; and, quick released

From earthen bound and sordid thrall,
My Daphne sat there, proud and tall.

Stately and tall, like any queen,
She spread her farthingale of green;

Nor stinted aught with larger fate,
For that she was innately great.

I learned, in accidental way,
A secret, on an after-day,–

A chance that marked the simple change
As something ominous and strange.

And so, therefrom, with anxious care,
Almost with underthought of prayer,

As, day by day, my listening soul
Waited to catch the coming roll

Of pealing victory, that should bear
My country's triumph on the air,–

I tended gently all the more
The plant whose life a portent bore.

The weary winter wore away,
And still we waited, day by day;

And still, in full and leafy pride,