Page:Alice Lauder.pdf/141

and he could almost hear again the locusts’ poignant, penetrating cry throbbing through the warm, sleepy afternoon. He looked a little sadly at the half-finished sketch of a face that had passed so soon afterwards into the Silent Land, and said to one who stood near him:

“I don’t know how it was that I could never catch her expression. When she looked down I often thought I could idealize her face, and sometimes she would seem so gentle—sad, almost—but then she would laugh again, and that look was gone. I wish I had a better picture of her; but perhaps this rough outline brings her back more clearly.” And he wondered why his wife only sighed and said softly, as if to herself, “Poor, poor Lizzie!” . . . .

“Well, go on,” said Lizzie’s living voice on that summer afternoon. “What am I to be angry with you about? Don’t you put yourself in a perspiration over it, anyway.”

“Oh, never mind, just now, Princess,” he answered absently, giving up his improvement class as a hopeless task. “But there’s something wrong about your hair to-day. It doesn’t suit the shape of your head in all those twists and fal-lals. Couldn’t you put it up in a round sort of knob at the back. You know the way I mean.”