Interludes

Front matter

INTERLUDES INTERLUDES BY MAUD OXEN DEN EDWARD ARNOLD LONDON NEW YORK 37 Bedford Street 70 Fifth Avenue CONTENTS. PAGE AN INTERLUDE ------ I HER COUSIN ERNEST - - - - 15 EMMIE ------- 43 TWENTY YEARS - - - - - 103 A woman's SMILE - 135 ROBERT OGILVY'S WIFE ----- 149 ANTHONY MAITLAND ----- 207 A REFLECTION ------ 279 A MOUNTAIN TRAGEDY ----- Waking dreams of life — no matter whether Joy, or grief, or love in varying moods ; Woven into words and bound together. Interludes. Some with wider vision seeing clearly Where life's limits end and death intrudes, Know that love and joy and grief are merely Interludes. Grief, or love, or joy — who would recall them Gazing down from Heaven's high altitudes ? In that wide perspective we shall call them Interludes. A morning in December ; the air balmy, soft, spring like — an interlude in a week of gales and rain.

It was too lovely a day to waste. When they met at the breakfast-table, they agreed to spend it out of doors; they would go and visit the Triangular Lodge. ' Let us enjoy,' said the man's eyes, and the girl's heart answered, ' Let us forget.' A morning full of hope, and promise, and gladness — a world that rejoiced and smiled. The sun warmed them, the soft breeze caressed them, as they drove through the moist, earth-scented air, while their eyes wandered over the brown winter landscape. They two alone — the day before them. ' Let us enjoy,' said the man, smiling down on his companion. ' Yes,' the girl answered ; ' let us forget They two alone, the little gray tossing her head, and scorning all suggestion of whip or guidance of rein ; the long, straight road to the station, the quarrymen looking up to watch them as they passed ; the babel of shrill children's voices in the village school ; the old I lichen-stained church, the crooked headstones mounting guard over silent rows of sheltered dead; the shrill whistle and smoke of a passing train— all seemed part of a strange, delicious dream as they sped on.

Presently the road took a dip into a low-lying marshy district, ridge and furrow meadows with water gleaming here and there, patches of covert fenced round with broken wattles ; then, again, rising ground, more home steads and farm buildings, rich brown fields of every tone and degree of brown, and over all the warm sun shine, transforming, glorifying the earth in a bath of glory and gold. They talked of the things they saw, laughing merrily at the merest trifles, following stray thoughts through maddest mazes of fancy, much as the sunbeams danced in and out the feathery labyrinth of the plantations ; their eyes fed on the soft, mellow tones of the landscape, and their souls were satisfied. Let us forget — forget ; for to-day, let us forget. A leisurely climb up a long steep hill. On the crest they drew rein, in doubt as to their bearings.