Ainslee's Magazine, February 1913 — page 113: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

TREASURE OF THE HEART tirely lost. I rather fancy the greatest thing stays by one.” “So?” Gordon was amused. “And what do you think it is, Amy?” She hesitated. A slow pink crept into her clear cheek. A small and tender face, gold-haired, sweet, smiling, rose before her. Her eyes took on the look of the child’s. She lifted her head. “Love,” she said bravely. “A woman's answer!” He slighted it. “A world’s hope.” Amy stood by her guns. Gordon laughed unpleasantly. “A fine lot you know about it!’ he scoffed. “My good child, it blows away like thistledown before the first wind of trouble; it leaves, the: minute you fail to meet all its demands. Why, Leila z “But you never, never, never loved Leila!” Amy spoke out suddenly, in a white heat. “You got from Leila just what you paid for, and deserved; a beautiful body, that you could deck out with the trappings of your victories; a flagstaff to hang your spoils on! “Selfish? Idle? Extravagant? Did you ever give her a half chance to be anything better? And so you're fail- ures, both of you! “You successful? Gordon, Gordon! It isn’t so much that you’ve missed the big things, the real things, the beautiful things; it’s that you don’t even know them! It’s that your kind of success takes you into a far country, Gordon, and trains you to think that only the husks are worth while; and so you fight for the husks, and cast away from you the bread of your Father’s House.” Was this Amy, shy, reticent Amy, this girl who looked as might an angel of love and of judgment? He caught his breath; and of a sudden his heart began to hammer in his breast. “Why—why—Amy! Amy!” But, suddenly afraid of his kindling eyes, terrified that she had been stung out of her calm reserve, Amy turned and fled to her room. Delicately smiling, lonesome, lovely, the little iiker-cdioe portrait looked down from her mantel with gray and sympathetic eyes. 103 “Savourneen Dheelish!” she cried. “Even you have left me!” “Amy, dear, please mayn’t I see you?” Gordon was at her door, his voice boyishly, impatiently eager. Amy opened the door. “T thought—I was afraid ‘ began, and stopped, finished. His eyes, traveling over the pleasant, familiar old room, had fallen upon the sketch. Abruptly he put Amy aside, and, going over to the mantel, seized the portrait. “I never saw this before. send it to you?” “Why, no, I did it myself,” said Amy. “A copy, then?” “No,” said Amy. She did not wish to be questioned. She would see that the little picture was put away under lock and key, after this, she reflected hurriedly. “You mean to say you got this from life?’ he asked incredulously. “But that’s impossible. You never saw her.” “Yes, I got this—from life,” said Amy, with a swift, mysterious smile. “It is—was’’—the smile faded even more swiftiy—‘a little friend,” she fin- ished lamely. But Gordon, holding.the water color in his hand, said, with deep emotion: “It is she. How could I mistake those eyes, that chin?” “You mean?” Of a sudden Amy be- gan to tremble. “Amy!” He turned to her abruptly. “How strange! I never saw it before, but I do see it now—her resemblance to you. See the cleft chin, the curved mouth, the clear, gray eyes, the hair so pale, so fine! Why, I remember when you yourself had hair of just such baby gold. And you’ve both the same look— such a still and lonesome look, Amy! “Oh, my little child, my little child! It makes me feel as if I’d never really known you, as if I were only beginning to know you, to look on this!” And then, out of a daze, Amy knew; and she began to stammer incoherently : “Your child—Gordon’s little girl— Amy She gave a piteous cry. “And I wept and wondered—and he his sentence un- Did Leila (C@) ANUC VOLK (C@