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Page 15
"Just look! Isn't Marie's face grand?" said Clarence one night in a
concert.
Beth only smiled. That night she sat in the rocker opposite her mirror
and looked at her own reflection.
"What a grave, grey-eyed face it is!" she thought. She loved music and
beautiful things, and yet she wondered why her eyes never sparkled and
glowed like Marie's. She wished they had more expression. And yet Marie
was not a pretty girl: no one would have thought for a moment of
calling her pretty.
But what of Arthur? Beth was surprised that during all this time she had
seen him but once, though she lived so near to Victoria. That once was
in the University hall. She had studied late one afternoon, in the
reading-room, after the other girls were gone, and it was just where the
two corridors met that she came face to face with Arthur. He stopped,
and inquired about her studies and her health, and his eyes rested
kindly upon her for a moment; but he did not speak to her just like the
old Arthur. "Good-bye, Beth--little Beth." She recalled the words as she
passed down the long, deserted hall, with its row of lights on either
side.
There was another thing that touched Beth. It was when Marie left them
just before the examinations in the spring; she was going to visit some
friends. Sweet Marie! How she would miss her. She sat by the
drawing-room window waiting to bid her good-bye. It was a bright April
day, with soft clouds and a mild breeze playing through the budding
trees. Marie came down looking so picturesque under her broad-brimmed
hat, and lifted her veil to receive Beth's farewell kiss. Beth watched
her as she crossed the lawn to the cab. Clarence came hurrying up to
clasp her hand at the gate. He looked paler, Beth thought; she hoped he
would come in, but he turned without looking at her window and hurried
away. Beth felt a little sad at heart; she looked at the long, empty
drawing-room, and sighed faintly, then went back upstairs to her books.
And what had that winter brought to Beth? She had grown; she felt it
within herself. Her mind had stretched out over the great wide world
with its millions, and even over the worlds of the sky at night, and at
times she had been overwhelmed at the glory of earth's Creator. Yes, she
had grown; but with her growth had come a restlessness; she felt as
though something were giving way beneath her feet like an iceberg
melting in mild waters. There was one particular night that this
restlessness had been strong. She had been to the Modern Language Club,
and listened to a lecture on Walt Whitman, by Dr. Needler. She had never
read any of Whitman's poetry before, she did not even like it. But there
were phrases and sentences here and there, sometimes of Whitman's,
sometimes of Dr. Needler's, that awakened a strange incoherent music in
her soul--a new chord was struck. It was almost dark when she reached
her room, at the close of a stormy winter day. She stood at her window
watching the crimson and black drifts of cloud piled upon each other in
the west. Strife and glory she seemed to read in that sky. She thought
of Whitman's rugged manliness, of the way he had mingled with all
classes of men--mingled with them to do them good. And Beth's heart
cried out within her, only to do something in this great, weary
world--something to uplift, to ennoble men, to raise the lowly, to feed
and to clothe the uncared for, to brighten the millions of homes, to
lift men--she knew not where. This cry in Beth's heart was often heard
after that--to be great, to do something for others. She was growing
weary of the narrow boundaries of self. She would do good, but she knew
not how. She heard a hungry world crying at her feet, but she had not
the bread they craved. Poor, blinded bird, beating against the bars of
heaven! Clarence never seemed to understand her in those moods: he had
no sympathy with them. Alas, he had never known Beth Woodburn; he had
understood her intellectual nature, but he had never sounded the depths
of her womanly soul. He did not know she had a heart large enough to
embrace the whole world, when once it was opened. Poor, weak, blinded
Clarence! She was as much stronger than he, as the star is greater than
the moth that flutters towards it.
CHAPTER VII.
_ENDED._
June was almost over, and Beth had been home a full month on that long
four months' vacation that university students are privileged to enjoy.
She was very ambitious when she came home that first vacation. She had
conceived a fresh ideal of womanhood, a woman not only brilliantly
educated and accomplished, but also a gentle queen of the home, one who
thoroughly understood the work of her home. Clarence was quite pleased
when she began to extol cooking as an art, and Dr. Woodburn looked
through the open kitchen-door with a smile at his daughter hidden behind
a clean white apron and absorbed in the mysteries of the pastry board.
Aunt Prudence was a little astonished, but she never would approve of
Beth's way of doing things--"didn't see the sense of a note-book and
lead-pencil." But Beth knew what she was doing in that respect.
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