inspiring fragrance. One long,[Pg 16] golden sunbeam steals silently into the white-curtained window of a quiet room, and lay athwart a sleeping face. Cold, pale, still, its fair, young face pressed against the satin-lined casket. Slender, white fingers, idle now, they that had never known rest; locked softly over a bunch of violets; violets and tube-roses in her soft, brown hair, violets in the bosom of her long, white gown; violets and tube-roses and orange-blossoms banked everywhere, until the air was filled with the ascending souls of the human flowers. Some whispered that a broken heart had ceased to flutter in that still, young form, and that it was a mercy for the soul to ascend on the slender sunbeam. To-day she kneels at the throne of heaven, where one year ago she had communed at an earthly altar. [Pg 16] III. Far away in a distant city, a man, carelessly looking among some papers,[Pg 17] turned over a faded bunch of flowers tied with a blue ribbon and a lock of hair. He paused meditatively awhile, then turning to the regal-looking woman lounging before the fire, he asked: [Pg 17] "Wife, did you ever send me these?" She raised her great, black eyes to his with a gesture of ineffable disdain, and replied languidly: "You know very well I can't bear flowers. How could I ever send such sentimental trash to any one? Throw them into the fire." And the Easter bells chimed a solemn requiem as the flames slowly licked up the faded violets. Was it merely fancy on the wife's part, or did the husband really sigh,—a long, quivering breath of remembrance?[Pg 18] [Pg 18] THREE THOUGHTS. FIRST How few of us In all the world's great, ceaseless struggling strife, Go to our work with gladsome, buoyant step, And love it for its sake, whate'er it be. Because it is a labor, or, mayhap, Some sweet, peculiar art of God's own gift; And not the promise of the world's slow smile of recognition, or of mammon's gilded grasp. Alas, how few, in inspiration's dazzling flash, Or spiritual sense of world's beyond the dome Of circling blue around this weary earth, Can bask, and know the God-given grace Of genius' fire that flows and permeates The virgin mind alone; the soul in which The love of earth hath tainted not. The love of
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