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Finally the horses and the wagon creaked along the hot street down the road which led by the pillared white house, and again the village was at peace. Lucyet glanced at the clock. Was the mail going to be late this morning? No. The creaking of the hay wagon had but just lost itself in the silence, when her quick ear caught the rattle of the lighter carriage.
Miss Delia read it all through again, dwelling on certain lines, which she indicated by her forefinger, with special attention; then she looked up timidly. She met Lucyet's unsmiling eyes for a moment; then she, too, looked away, hurriedly, helplessly, to the dish of boiled potatoes. "I'm sure it is very nice very nice indeed, Lucyet," she said. "But you don't like it," said Lucyet.
"Miss Delia," said Lucyet, "I've written a poem." Her companion looked at her and smiled a shrewd little smile. "I've guessed as much before now," she said. "But," said Lucyet, laying down her knife and fork, "it has been printed." "Printed, child!" exclaimed Miss Delia, almost dropping hers.
"Well," said Silas, laying down his paper and standing up, "there isn't a blamed thing in that paper!" Lucyet looked up at him startled. Had she heard aright? Then the color slowly receded from her face and left it pale. Silas was quite unconscious of having made an unusual statement. "Well, Lucyet," he went on, "going to the Christian Endeavor to-night?" "I don't know," she stammered.
It stood out as if it were printed all in capitals. After a furtive look out at the quiet street, where, in a rusty wagon, an old man was just picking up his reins and preparing to jog away from the post-office door, and a side glance at Silas's broad back over by the farther window, Lucyet read over her own lines.
Miss Delia had fostered Lucyet's love for literature; and it was to Miss Delia that Lucyet hastened with the great news of the publication of her poem.
She was conscious of no hope for the future; she had no regret for the past; the present was a glory. In that moment Lucyet had taken a long, dizzying draught from the cup of success. Hearts Unfortified THE observation train wound its way in clumsy writhings along the bank of the river, upon which the afternoon light fell in modified brilliancy as the west kindled towards the sunset.
The letter must be to Ada's young man, who was doing a good business in cash registers, it took so long to write it. It was within five minutes of the time Lucyet should be at the office. She moved to leave the piazza, when a not loud exclamation from Richards fell on her ear with unusual distinctness. "By Jove! I say, just listen to this."
"They haven't fallen in my way yet." "It's pity that moves me to speech," rejoined the first speaker, rising and sauntering to the window, not that one outside of which Lucyet was sitting, "pity for those young souls throbbing with the consciousness of power who may have forgotten to enclose a stamp for return. I feel when I interrupt you as if I were holding back the remorseless wheel of fate."
"I don't know anything about dells and lovers," said Lucyet, simply; "how should I?" Miss Delia started a little. It had never occurred to her that one must know about things personally in order to write poetry about them. If it had, she would never have dreamed of mentioning lovers. "No, of course not," she said hastily; "but writing about a thing isn't like knowing about it."
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