She heard the piping of an elfish voice, "Mother, why does the minister
keep his hands over his heart?" and the white drawn face of Hester
Prynne, with her scarlet elf-child, passed slowly across her vision. The
wretched misery of deluded Lucius and his mysterious Lamia she saw, and
watched with breathless interest the formation of that "Brotherhood of
the Rose." There was radiant Armorel, from sea-blown, wave-washed
Lyonesse, her perfect head poised in loving caress over the magic
violin. Dark-eyed Corinne, head drooped gently as she improvised those
Rome-famed world symphonies passed, almost ere Edna and St. Elmo had
crossed the threshold of the church happy in the love now consecrated
through her to God. Oh, the pictures, the forms, the love-words which
crowded her mind! They thrilled her heart, crushed out all else save a
crushing, over-powering sense of perfect, complete joy. A joy that
sought to express itself in wondrous melodies and silences, filled with
thoughts too deep and sacred for words. Overpowered with the
magnificence of his reign, overwhelmed with the complete subjugation of
all things unto him, do you wonder that she awoke and placing both hands
into those of the lover at her side, whispered:--

Take all of me--I am thine own, heart, soul,
Brain, body, all; all that I am or dream
Is thine forever; yea, though space should teem
With thy conditions, I'd fulfil the whole,
Were to fulfil them to be loved by thee.




IN MEMORIAM.