"And as for puttin' on black, the dear remembered voice seems to be
a-sayin' to me, 'Don't put on the symbol of sorrow for one who has found
the very secret of happiness, who has left the dark shadders and has
gone into the great brightness. Don't carry the idee to the world that
you have lost me, for I am nearer to you than I ever could have been on
earth, for the clay has only fell off from my soul, leavin' the barrier
but thin indeed between us now.
"'Don't act as if you wuz mournin' for me, dear heart. Let the world
see your thought, see the truth we both know, by its reflection in your
face.'
"These are my idees, Lateza Alzina," sez I; "but howsumever, in this, as
in every other matter that don't have any moral wickedness in it, let
everybody be fully persuaded in their own mind, if they have got a mind,
and do as they want to, if they know what they want to do."
Oren had looked real tickled all the while I had been speakin'. And he
stood there on his bright plaid legs, and smoothed out the ends of his
gorgeous necktie with his yeller gloved hand, a happy and triumphant
mean onto him.
And the girls and their ma stood round him like a flock of gay-plumaged
birds, or a bokay of brilliant blossoms, and seemed real happified and
contented.
Wall, they wuz a-boardin' way out to the other end of the city, almost
'leven milds from there, so they had to leave middlin' early.
And they all come back in the evenin', they said. "They boarded a good
ways out--they enjoyed the ride so much a-goin' and comin'."
Sometimes I'm afraid the pendulum will break down, it swings so fur, and
then agin I don't know.
But anyway, they bid me a glad adoo, and the proud and gay Oren led his
brood off.
And to resoom.
The English Vestibule is decorated with panels painted by the wimmen of
that country. There wuz one by Mrs. Swimerton, of London, that appealed
strong to my heart; it was a seen from the temporary hospital at
Scutori.
Florence Nightingale stood in the foreground--good, pityin' female angel
that she wuz--and all round her lay sick and dyin' soldiers, and she
a-doin' all she could to help 'em.
This picture, showin' woman as a Healer and Consoler, is in the centre,
as it ort to be. On one side of it is a panel called Motherhood, an
Italian mother a-holdin' a baby in her arms, and on the other side is
Old Age and Youth, an old female bein' tenderly took care on by the
beautiful young girl who kneels before her.
On the other side of the vestibule is the paintin's of Mrs. Merritt, of
London. The centre piece shows a number of likely lookin' young females
a-studyin' art, and the panels on either side shows young girls and
older ones all a-studyin' and workin', and doin' the best they could
with what they had to do with.
Dretful upliftin' to my sect it wuz to look on them pictures, all on
'em.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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