The Argosy — page 392: what you’re looking at

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

378 Lost Harmony. I was ill a long, long time—I who before that summer never remem- bered a day’s illness in my life; I who had so often been angry with my own healthiness, and longed to make my round pink cheeks look pale and interesting. They were white enough now; so white and pinched that on that morning, when I had managed to creep to the glass, I covered them with my hands and shrank away again, frightened to think how soon another change must follow this one, and yet almost glad to think that I had only to lie still and wait for it. I heard Aunt Anna whisper of a fever I had passed through, but I knew that even she (kind and constant as she had been to me) had not understood the beginning and would not understand the end—for did she not even now talk to me sometimes of the coming time which I should never see ? | It was a very peaceful time. Aunt Anna was so kind to me, every- body seemed so good to me, and I had very little pain now, and was quite content. Yet often—very, very often—I was conscious of an aching want which—though it could not move me to suffering—was a faint shadow of that unrest of the early summer. There was no eager- ness in the want though, now. It seemed part of my great weakness, and I understood it as little. The trees before my windows were all gold and crimson tinted when at last I left my room, and—feeling a very shadow of myself in one of Aunt Anna’s long white wrappers—was esconced beside the fire down- stairs in Aunt Anna’s own big chair. She had closed the door upon us, and said she was rejoiced at having me about again, yet every now and then she looked into my face so piteously that I fancied its white- ness startled her now as it had startled me before. And then she went and sat apart where I could not see her eyes. I lay quite still, and resting : yet, stronger upon me than ever, was that old longing which even yet I had not learned to comprehend. What cou/d I miss, while I was so tenderly loved and cherished ? ‘Aunt Anna.” We had both of us been so long silent, that my low call startled myself as well asher. She was beside me in a moment, with her gentle hand upon my head. ‘‘ There is one thing I have missed through all my illness—Heinrich’s. music.” Yes, dear.” “Why?” She did not answer, and I saw her eyes were full of tears. ‘Ts he—gone?” ‘My darling, have I not told you of him every day through these sad weeks? Has he not always been anxious about you; always kind and helpful to me? Do you not remember what I have told your ” “Yes; but the house has been so silent, auntie. To-day—now—I CORnniclooolkks (CO)