Frontier and pioneer life -- Southern States -- Fiction; Love stories; Mountain people -- Southern States -- Fiction
She caught her breath. "Listen, for I am seeing visions too, now, as
you have taught me. I will lead you through those halls and show you to
all those dead ancestors, and I will dress you in a silken gown, the
color of the evening star we used to watch together from our cabin door,
and around your neck I will hang the yellow pearls that have been worn
by all those great ladies who stared at you from out their frames of
gold the day you came alone and unrecognized, bearing your priceless
gift in your arms. You shall wear the rich old lace of the family on
your bosom, and the jewelled coronet on your head; and no one will see
the silk and the jewels and the lace, for looking at you and at the gift
you bring.
"No, don't speak; it is my turn now to see the pictures. All will be
yours, whatever you see and touch in those stately homes--for you will
be the Lady Thryng, and, being the Lady Thryng, you will be no more
wonderful or beautiful than you were when you climbed to me, following
my flute notes, or when you bent between me and the fire preparing my
supper, or when you were weaving at your loom, or when you came to me
from our cabin door with your arms outstretched and the light of all the
stars of heaven in your eyes."
Then they were silent, a long silence, until, seated together in their
cabin before a bright log fire, as she held their baby to her breast,
Cassandra broke the stillness.
"Now I see it better, David. As you came here and lived my life, and
loved me just as I was--so to be truly one, I must go with you and live
your life. I must not fail you there."
"You have been tried as by fire and have not failed--nor are you the
kind of woman who ever fails."
Then she smiled up at him one of those rare and fleeting smiles that
always touched David with poignant pleasure, and said: "I think I
understand now. God meant us to feel this way, when he married us to
each other."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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