Even the hard
heart of youth must soften at such a reminiscence.
Then scattered about the house was many a prosaic bit of furniture which
was musical with memories for the parents,--memories of their first
little homes and their early struggles together. This side-board, now
relegated to the children's play-room, had once been their _piece de
resistance_ in such and such a street, twelve years ago, before their
children had risen up and--not called them blessed.
A few years, and the light of poetry will be upon these things for their
children too; but, meanwhile, can we blame them that they cannot accept
the poetry of their elders in exchange for that of their own which they
are impatient to make? And when that poetry is made and resident in
similar concrete objects of home--how will it seem, one wonders, to
their children? This old desk which Esther has been allowed to
appropriate, and in a secret drawer of which are already accumulating
certain love-letters and lavender, will it ever, one wonders, turn to
lumber in younger hands? For a little while she leans her sweet young
bosom against it, and writes scented letters in a girlish hand to a
little red-headed boy who has these past weeks begun to love her.
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