The Following of the Star: A RomanceBarclay, Florence L. (Florence Louisa)
General
The Following of the Star: A Romance
Barclay, Florence L. (Florence Louisa)
Clergy -- Fiction; Inheritance and succession -- Fiction; Marriage -- Fiction; Missionaries -- Fiction
He had mentioned in one of his letters, that among a package of
illustrated papers which had reached his station, he had found one in
which was an excellent photograph of Diana, passing down the steps of
the Town Hall, to her motor, after opening a bazaar at Eversleigh.
David had written with so much pleasure of this, that Diana, realising
he had no portrait of her, and knowing how her heart yearned for one of
him, went up to town, and was photographed especially for him.
When the portrait arrived, and her own face looked out at her from the
silver wrappings, she was startled by its expression. It was not a look
she ever saw in her mirror. The depth of tenderness in the eyes, the
soft wistfulness of the mouth, were a revelation of her own heart to
Diana. She had been thinking of her husband, when the camera
unexpectedly opened its eye upon her. The clever artist had sacrificed
minor details of arrangement, in order to take her unawares before a
photographic expression closed the gates upon the luminous beauty of her
soul.
Diana hurried the picture back into its wrappings. It had been taken for
David. To David it must go; and go immediately, if it were to go at all.
If it did not go at once to David, it would go into the fire.
It went to David.
With it went a letter.
"MY DEAR DAVID,--I am much amused that you should have come
across a picture of me in an illustrated paper. I did not
see it myself; but I gather from your description, that it
must have been taken as I was leaving the Town Hall after
the function of which I told you in September. Fancy you
being able to recognise the motor and the men. I remember
having to stand for a minute at the top of the long flight
of steps, while some of the members of the committee, who
had organised the bazaar, made their adieus. I always hate
all the hand-shaking on these occasions. I suppose you
would enjoy it, David. To you, each hand would mean an
interesting personality behind it. I am afraid to me it
only means something unpleasantly hot, and unnecessarily
literal in the meaning it gives to 'hand-shake.' Don't you
know a certain style of story which says, in crucial
moments between the hero and the heroine: 'He wrung her
hand and left her?' They always wring your hand--a most
painful process--when you open bazaars, but they don't
leave you! You are constrained at last to flee to your
motor.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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