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The curtains well drawn over the double glass windows, the cosy hearth-fire sending forth its ruddy flame as the only light of the room, the monotonous song of the samovar bubbling near the cups of tea all the seclusion of life isolated by an idolizing love had dulled their perceptions to the fact that the afternoons were growing longer, that outside the sun was shining later and later into the pearl-covered depths of the clouds, and that a timid and pallid Spring was beginning to show its green finger tips in the buds of the branches suffering the last nips of Winter that wild, black boar who so often turned on his tracks.
Tradition had it that here the holy Numa had built the hut which contained the hearth-fire of Rome, the divine spark which now shed its radiance over the nations. Back of the Temple was the House of the Vestals, a structure with a plain exterior, differing little from the ordinary private dwellings.
No, really before that, with his first visit. That was in late September when the nights were frosty and Miss Blake had begun to cut and stack her wood for winter, and to use it for a crackling hearth-fire after supper. They were sitting before such a fire when Hilliard came.
The man of restrained senses should seek his dole of charity in a householder's abode when the smoke has ceased to rise from it, when the sound of the husking rod is hushed, when the hearth-fire is extinguished, when all the inmates have finished their meals, or when the hour is over for setting the dishes.
There, when wind and rain beat without, the hearth-fire burns through the winter, and round it gathers that other marvellous invention of which the hearth-fire became the mysterious symbol, the family. From this point the race is on the full current of progress, of which the remainder of the book gives an account as essentially true as it is incomparably brilliant.
The books came out in the long evenings; the grandsires told old tales under the inspiration of the hearth-fire: the children gathered on their wooden stools to roast apples and pop corn; and hearts came closer together than when summer called the housemates to wander here and there in fields and woods and beside the river.
She had pictured a hearth-fire, and a blue and white kitchen with aluminum pans and glass baking dishes. She had even wondered how tiny fingers would feel as they curled about her hand if a wee head would be heavy upon her breast. Of late her dreams, for some reason, had become a little less misty a little more definite.
Yet, as they sat together before the hearth-fire that evening, and the stern, proud calm of Gilbert's face slowly melted into a gentler and tenderer expression, his mother was moved to speak. "This has been my day," she said; "it was appointed and set apart for me from the first; it belonged to me, and I have used it, in my right, from sun to sun.
The slaves of Pericles were already in the farm-yard, yoking the oxen, milking the goats, and getting out the tools. There were pleasant early sounds all about, but the Twins hovered over the hearth-fire, for the morning was chill; and Dion yawned. Lydia saw him. "Come," she said briskly, "wash your faces! That will wake you up, if you are still sleepy.
Daphne followed Chloe to the closet, and for a moment there was no one beside the hearth-fire but Dion and Argos, and the sausages smelled very good indeed. "I wonder if she counted them," thought Dion to himself, as he looked longingly at them. And then almost before he knew it himself he had snatched one of the sausages from the fire and had bitten a piece off the end!
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