But the time had come when the Countess thought her daughter ought to begin to realise that the great world was not an ideal one like that of her dreams.

"Mercy," she said, "why do you always write of 'Terah' as you call him?

He seems to be the hero of all your stories, and he is quite impossible.

You must not imagine that people in the great world are as lovely in their lives as your flowers are. 'Terah' is an ideal."

"An ideal?"

"Yes, there is no such man."

"In what way is he not true?" asked the girl, her eyes full of wonder.

"Describe him again, and I will explain."

"His name speaks for him; it means that he was a breather of good like the wind, only he was always gentle. Then he drove away sorrow. He was a comforter; his face was most beautiful; he was all mercy, all love; and he had thought of others so much that self was quite dead in him. Is that impossible in that wide world yonder?"

The Countess sighed as she answered, "Do not make him so handsome, Mercy, and then perhaps he will be a more probable character, the man enriched by Providence with perfect beauty such as your hero cannot help being self-imbued. It is the old story of Narcissus, every gla.s.s greets him with the picture he likes best to see; even the eyes of the woman he loves are dimmed by the reflection of his image."

[Ill.u.s.tration]

Months pa.s.sed, and a great change was noticed in Lady Mercy. She grew paler and paler; she wrote no more stories; and all her studies were stopped. She rose very early, and walked miles in the woods and by the river, as if seeking for something. The "Windflower" seemed to have been bruised by a rough tempest.

A renowned doctor came from the metropolis and pressed her to say what ailed her.

"I am looking for 'Terah.' Mother said he was an ideal, merely the creature of my brain, and since then I have lost him," she moaned. "Ask her to take me to the great city that I may seek him, for I think he has gone there to prove that he is true."

And so the "Windflower" was uprooted from among her kith and kin. She journeyed to the distant town, past the river and over the hills.

And all was changed. She was thrust into the world of fashion. Dressed in costly silks with long flowing trains, her hair was not allowed to hang loosely over her shoulders any more. She was "out," so it was dressed high on her head by a French _coiffeur_. She was forbidden to walk unattended in the great city. Even in the parks she was always accompanied by a chaperon. It was not correct to be seen alone, and comfort and freedom had to be sacrificed.

II.

Society made much of the ethereal-looking girl. Society took to her t.i.tle of the "Windflower"; it was so romantic, so "old world." She went for rides in the Row, drove in the Park, visited the opera and theatres, was present at evening receptions, and at ladies' "tea and scandal"

parties--weak tea and strong scandal. Here she learned to fear her own s.e.x.

She was presented at Court in a low dress on a foggy afternoon; she went everywhere in a sort of dream seeking her ideal, but she found no trace of "Terah," the breather of good; and as time pa.s.sed she grew sick at heart, seeing on all hands the l.u.s.t of self. Men battled for their idol everywhere, women bartered away their souls to crown self with a diadem of gold.

Presently she was permitted to go about unattended, a freedom that inspired her with new hopes. She went down to the busy part of the city and stood in the surging crowd that battled for life. The "Windflower"

was alone in a world of anxious men whose all-consuming pa.s.sion was self. Time was precious. All was hurry. Everybody had business on hand; even at luncheon they seemed to be racing. Not a minute was to be lost; hesitate but for an instant, and they were pushed aside, the great race of self against self, pursuing its course without them. A few attained the goal, but many were stricken down by the way. Those who reached it bowed their heads to the ground and worshipped at the glittering shrine where Gold and Self were throned kings of the human heart.

Her quest seemed to be failing entirely. Among the poor, who learned to love her, she now and then found a trace of her lost "Terah," but it was only a straggling ray of light in a nightmare of darkness and sin.

One night she was present at a great ball given in her honour by an intimate friend of the Countess.

The room was filled with sweet perfumes, the mantel-pieces heaped with lilies of the valley and white lilacs. All the wealth of spring flowers lay fainting in the hot atmosphere. Not a drop of water to cool them, not a breath of air to ease their pain. The band shrieked out its cheap melodies, the dancers danced beneath the glare of electric lights. The fashionable throng enjoyed itself. But one out of its number felt as weary as the flowers. Dressed in clinging folds of soft satin, her hair was arranged low in her neck, and in her hand she held a few loose roses. She looked like a garden lily which had strayed from its home, and grieved to find that it had exchanged the evening air and the silence of the night for the glare of electric globes, the heat of a crowded room, and the hubbub of countless voices.

"And so you do not like society?" said her partner, a young fellow whom she had often met before, and whom she greatly interested.

"From what I know of it I do not. I think, too, that people who live in cities are cruel. Look at the poor lilacs and lilies ma.s.sed together to faint and die. In my home we never think of letting flowers remain without water. We look upon them as living things. Every blossom has a life of its own; it knows pain and thirst. When I see them, torn from hedge and meadow by careless hands and thrown on to the roads to die in the dust, I know that for each flower an angel weeps."

"Do not talk of things that make you sad. I want you to be happy to-night. You are enjoying yourself, are you not?" the young fellow inquired wistfully. Dangerous question to ask the grave idealist, but he had taken a great fancy to her, he sympathised with many of her feelings. "If you cannot say that you are enjoying yourself, please leave my question unanswered," he added hastily.

Lady Mercy looked up in surprise, then partly comprehending his words, she said,--

"I like to talk with you; but I have had to converse with so many others who have nothing to say that I am weary--men who asked me whether I had seen this or that play, if I had been on the great wheel, did I approve of bicycling for women? Had I tried golfing? And then, having finished their stock of small talk, they taxed their poor ingenuity to pay me compliments."

"I am not surprised," was the grave reply.

"Oh! I wish you had not said that. Why should a man seek to flatter a woman; in short, to insult her?"

"I would not offend you for the world!" he cried. "Indeed I am sorry."

"And I am grieved to have spoken bitterly. Pardon me, I do not know how to talk even to you, and everything is so strange," she said, flushing deeply.

"Tell me of what you like most yourself; that will interest me beyond all other subjects."

"I cannot speak of that," she answered, a gentle light playing on her face. "I can only think about it. The remembrance of it is rooted in my heart; it is a part of me."

"Mercy," he cried, his face flushing and his eyes becoming strangely brilliant, "the Countess has told me of your dream, of your search for some one who has never existed. Ah! give it up. Do you not know that the bitterest chapter in the book of life is that which is headed 'Broken Ideals'? The pages are written in blood, they are blistered with tears. The reader must decipher that chapter alone, the shattered remains of what was once his divinity, his sunshine feeding on his heart, and poisoning even his memory."

"But humanity should not let its ideals be broken. It should fight for them, lock them safe in the inmost chamber of its mind. It should never suffer a profane hand to destroy that which is dearer than itself," she answered, with a fixed, far-away look in her eyes.

"Ah, my dear Mercy, believe me, should you appear to find he whom you seek, you will but dream, and then awake to learn that your young, fresh life has been wasted, and that your Ideal is false. Then age will be pa.s.sed in useless longing and vain regrets."

"I shall find him. I did know him once, and he left me, but he will come back again." Her eyes filled with tears, and she looked so spiritual, so beautiful, that her companion could contain himself no longer.

"Mercy, I love you!" he whispered.

The breathless words brought her back from dreamland, with its mists and its dim beauties--back to a London ballroom, back to fading humanity and faded flowers. The utter weariness and cheapness of it all struck her painfully, the pa.s.sionate cry of love a.s.sociated itself in her mind with the rustle and frippery of fashion.

"My life is his of whom we have spoken," she said gently in response to his beseeching glance, as her hostess, a bright, fashionable woman, hurried up and whispered effusively: "Wait here a moment, dear. I have at last found some one whom I am sure will please you. He is very rich and handsome, quite a king in the world of fashion, and yet a Christian gentleman--and oh, so wise! We call him our Ideal."

She came back accompanied by a tall, fine man. Everybody thought him beautiful--"pure Greek, you know"; but Lady Mercy started back in terror, recovering herself the next minute. To her he was hideous--his mouth misshapen, his eyes a dull red. Was it because her own soul was so pure that she saw people's minds, not their faces, and when a mind was evil its chief vice shone through its fleshly covering like a beacon?

"Delighted to meet you, Lady Mercy; will you dance?"

"No, thank you."

"We will sit it out, then, and talk. By the way, our mutual friend, Lady R----, tells me that you are much distressed over the condition of the unemployed in our great city?"

"Yes, I want mother to devise a scheme for helping them. I have seen so much suffering since I have been here."

"Money thrown away, I a.s.sure you; they are a rascally set. If a man is willing to work there is work to be had."

"I disagree, sir; work is most difficult to obtain. A character is needed. Many of these poor, suffering creatures have no recommendation that might ent.i.tle them to recognition at the hands of Christ's followers. And most of them are not in a condition to work. They have neither clothes, nor health, nor hope. Could you build with your feet through your boots? Could you lift heavy weights with no strength in your body and no hope in your soul?"

"You forget I am not one of the unemployed," he said, smiling.