Loved you better than you knew

“Love! It began with a glance, Grew with the growing flowers, Smiled in a dreamful trance, Recked not the passage of hours.

“Grief! It began with a word, Grew with the winds that raved, A prayer for pardon unheard, Pardon in turn uncraved. The bridge so easy to sever, The stream so swift to be free, Till the brook became a river, And the river became a sea.

“Life! It began with a sigh, Grew with the leaves that are dead, Its pleasures with wings to fly, Its sorrows with wings of lead.”

Could one lift the impenetrable veil of mystery that hides the future from our curious eyes, what secrets would often be revealed, what shadows would fall upon hearts now light and thoughtless--shadows of grief, of horror, and despair!

“It is better not to know,” agree both the poets and sages.

Beautiful Cinthia Dawn did not think of that as she drummed upon the window-pane that rainy autumn day, exclaiming rebelliously:

“I wish something would happen to break up the dreadful monotony of my life.”

Widow Flint, who was her aunt and guardian, and as crabbed and crusty as her name, looked at her with dismay, and retorted:

“Some people don’t know when they’re well off. You have enough to eat, to drink, and to wear, and a good home. What more do you want?”

The girl looked at the dingy sitting-room, her own shabby gray gown, then out at the dismal landscape, blurred by the rain and low-hanging clouds, with something like frank contempt, and answered, recklessly:

“I want pretty clothes and jewels, beautiful surroundings, gay times, and lovers, such as other girls have instead of this humdrum, poky existence--so there!”

“Humph!”

It was all Mrs. Flint said aloud, but to herself she added:

“Good land! I do wish my brother would come home from his eternal wanderings and take charge of his rattled-brained daughter. She’s too pretty and restless, and I don’t see how I’m going to hold her down much longer.”

Cinthia Dawn was seventeen now, and ever since she had been given into her aunt’s sole keeping at five years old, the strait-laced soul, who was as prim and particular as an old maid, had been engaged in the difficult task of “holding down” her spirited young niece. She had even erred on the side of prudence, so great was her anxiety to bring her up in the way she should go.

When the lovely child first came her aunt said frankly to all:

“I don’t want anybody ever to tell Cinthy that she is pretty.”

“She can find it out for herself by just looking in the glass,” objected one of her cronies.

“I’ll tend to that,” said Mrs. Flint, crustily, and she furnished her rooms with cracked and distorted mirrors, whose blurred surfaces gave back indeed no fair reflection of the child’s beauty.

She carried out her programme further by dressing the child in the plainest, commonest clothing, and plaiting all her wealth of golden curls in a single tail down her back, though she could not prevent it even then from breaking out on her brow and neck in enchanting little ringlets that a ballroom belle might have envied.

To her dearest crony Mrs. Flint excused her course by saying, confidentially:

“Cinthy’s mother, who is dead now, was the vainest and prettiest creature on earth, and she did wicked work with her beauty. I don’t want to say aught against her now that she is dead; but Cinthy must have a different raising, that’s all. My brother said so when he put her in my charge. ‘Bring her up good and simple in your old-fashion way, Rebecca,’ was what he said.”

“That’s right. ‘Favor is deceitful and beauty is vain, but a woman that feareth the Lord, she shall be praised.’ That’s Cinthy’s Bible verse, and I hope she’ll live up to it,” returned the good crony, Deacon Rood’s wife.

So Cinthia Dawn was reared simply and plainly almost to severity. She received her education at the public school, and at home helped her aunt with the house-work. Surreptitiously she read poetry and novels.

Such a simple, quiet life--just like thousands and thousands of others--but Cinthia was outgrowing it now. She was seventeen--the most romantic age in the world--and she chafed at the dreariness of her life.

School-days were ended now, and her merry mates had their new gowns, their dances, and their lovers. There were none of these for Cinthia Dawn.

Mrs. Flint said her niece was nothing but a child yet, so she was not permitted to attend parties, and she vowed she had no money to spend on finery. As for lovers, if she had any, the bravest would not have dared present himself at Mrs. Flint’s door. She would have said to him as to the veriest tramp:

“Be off!”

It was just the life to drive a pretty, spirited girl frantic with impatience of the present, and longings for something better than she had known--the longing that found impatient expression that afternoon when she watched the dead leaves flying in sodden drifts beneath the chill November rain.

After Mrs. Flint’s curt rejoinder to her complaints she remained silent several minutes drumming impatiently on the pane, then burst out:

“Oh, Aunt Beck, don’t you want me to run down to the post-office for your Christian Advocate?”

“In all this storm?”

“Oh, I won’t mind it a bit! I’m in a mood for fighting the elements!”

“Then take your umbrella and overshoes, and hurry back.”

“Yes, aunt.”

Glad to escape from the monotony of the little brown house, she hurried out into the teeth of the storm, and made her way through the village streets to the little post-office. The rain blew in her face, and the wind crimsoned her cheeks and made her dark eyes flash like stars. Cinthia did not care. In her splendor of youth and health she found it exhilarating.

But going back, the storm, that had been gathering its forces for a fiercer onslaught, increased in angry violence.

She had left the paved main street, too, now, and was emerging into the thinly populated suburbs where her home was situated.

A great gust of wind met her at the corner of a street, taking her breath with its fierce onslaught, wrapping her damp skirts about her ankles, and whisking her umbrella from her grasp. She chased it wildly almost a block, only to see it whirled into the middle of the street and crushed under the wheels of a heavily loaded farm wagon lumbering into the little town. Meanwhile, the vagrant wind pelted her with drifts of dead leaves, and the flood-gates of heaven opened and poured down torrents of water.

“Take my umbrella, Miss Dawn!” cried the gay musical voice of a young man who had been chasing her as fast as she flew after the umbrella.