A String of Amber Beads by Martha Everts Holden
page 68 of 70 (97%)
page 68 of 70 (97%)
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like a homely woman in a bridal veil of shimmering lace. We skimmed
along on a smooth and unobstructed track, like a sloop with every sail set, heading for the open sea. There were no idle chatterers aboard, and from the stalwart gripman at his post of duty, to the shrinking little girl passenger, who was half afraid and half delighted to be abroad so late alone, everybody and everything was in harmony with the hour and scene. Suddenly there fluttered into the car a snowy moth, astray from some flower garden in the country and quite bewildered and lost in the barren city. The beautiful creature fluttered into a lady's face and she screamed and struggled as though attacked by a rabid beast. "Oh, kill it! kill the horrid thing," she cried, while her attendant beat the air with his cane and sought to drive the dangerous interloper away. It rested for a moment upon the gripman's cap, where it looked like a feather dropped from a wandering bird. At last it settled upon the breast of a little child sleeping in its mother's arms. The mother brushed it away with her handkerchief as though its presence brought defilement. A gentleman who was seated near me caught the bewildered thing and with a very tender touch held it for a block or so until we came to one of the pretty parks that make our city so attractive. Stepping from the car, he loosened his grasp upon the captive moth near a big syringa bush that adorned the entrance way. He watched the dainty white wings flutter down into the cool seclusion of the blossom then turned and boarded the car and pursued his homeward way conscious, let us hope, of a very pretty and graceful deed of kindness to a most insignificant claimant for protection and succor. Sentimental, was it? Well, God help the world when all sentimentality of this kind is gone out of it. |
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