Nothing fascinated Madge more than
to observe how the artist caught the essential elements of beauty in
the changing cloud scenery and reproduced the effects on a few
inches of canvas, and in her better appreciation of similar scenery
thereafter, she saw how true it is that art may be the interpreter of
nature.
The fine music and varied entertainments at the house served also to
beguile her time. On one occasion the young people were arranging a
series of tableaux, and she was asked to personate Jephtha's daughter.
When the curtain rose on her lovely face and large, dark eyes, the
Hebrew maiden and her pathetic history grew into vivid reality against
the dim background of the past.
After all, the time that intervened between Monday and Friday
afternoon was spent in waiting, and even the hours toward the last
were counted. The expression in Graydon's dark blue eyes was always
the same when he greeted her, and recalled the line:
"Kinder than Love is my true friend."
On Saturdays they took long tramps, seeking objective points far
beyond the range of ordinary ramblers.
CHAPTER XL
THE END OF THE WOOING
Madge had often turned wistful eyes toward High Peak, and on the last
Saturday before their final return to the city she said to Graydon,
"Dare we attempt it? Perhaps if we gave the day to the climb, and took
it leisurely--"
"There's no 'perhaps' about it.
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