A Modern Wizard

by Rodrigues Ottolengui

  CHAPTER I.

  ONE NIGHT.

  "Leon! Leon!"

  The cry was low and weak, and the suffering woman fell back upon herpillow. The youth, though asleep, heard, and quickly responded to thecall. He had been sitting in the large arm-chair, beside a rude woodentable, upon which stood a common glass lamp, with red wick, whoseflickering flame shed but a dim ray across the well-thumbed pages of abook which lay open. While reading under such unfavorablecircumstances, the boy had slumbered, his mind drifting slowly towarddream-land, yet not beyond the voice of the sufferer. She had scarcelyrepeated his name, when he was kneeling beside her, speaking in avoice that was tender and solicitous.

  "What is it, mother?" he asked.

  "Nothing," was the reply.

  "Do you wish to drink?"

  "No."

  "Are you in pain?"

  "Yes. But no matter."

  "Will you take your medicine?"

  "No. Leon, I want to tell you something."

  "Not to-night, mother. You must sleep to-night. To-morrow you maytalk."

  "Leon, when I sleep to-night, it will be forever."

  "Do not talk so, mother. You are nervous. Perhaps the darknessoppresses you. I will turn up the light."

  He did so, but the lamp only spluttered, flaring up brighter for amoment, only to burn as dull as before.

  "You see," said the old woman, with a ghastly smile, "there will be nomore light in my life."

  "Indeed there will be."

  "I tell you no!" She spoke fiercely, and summoned all her waningenergy to her aid, as she struggled to raise herself upon her elbow.Then, extending a bony finger in his direction and shaking it inemphasis of her words, she continued: "I tell you I am dying. Death ishere; in this room; I see his form, and I feel his cold fingers on myforehead. Sh! Sh! Listen! Do you not hear? A voice from the darknessis calling--'Confess! Confess!'" Then with a feeble cry she droppedback, moaning and groaning as in anguish.

  "Mother! Mother! Lie still! Do not talk so." Leon was much agitated bythe scene which had just transpired. The woman was quiet for a time,except that she sobbed, but presently she addressed him again.

  "Leon, I must talk. I must tell. But don't call me mother."

  "Why not?

  How frequently in life do we thus rush ruthlessly upon unsuspectedcrises in our fates? Leon said these words, with no thought of theirimport, and with no foreboding of what would follow. How could heguess that from the moment of their utterance his life would bechanged, and his boyhood lost to him forever, because of themomentousness of the reply which he invited?

  When the woman spoke again, her voice was so low that the youth leaneddown to hear her words. She said:

  "Leon, you have been a good son to me. But--I am not your mother."Having spoken the words with a sadness in her heart, which found echoin the cadence of her voice, she turned her face wearily away from theyouth, and waited for his reply. And he, though astounded by what hehad heard, did not at the time fully connect the words with himself,but recognized only the misery which their utterance had caused to thesuffering woman. With gentleness as tender as a loving woman's, heturned her face to his, touched her lips with his, and softly said:

  "You are my mother! The only mother that I have ever known!" Oh! Theweakness of human kind, which, at the touch of a loving hand, thesound of a loving voice, yields up its most sacred principles! Thisdying woman had lived from birth till now in a secluded New Englandvillage, and, imbibing her puritanical instincts from her ancestry,she almost deemed it a sin to smile, or show any outward sign ofhappiness. She had been a mother to this boy, according to her bigotedideas; she had been good to him in her own way; but she had kissed himbut once, and then he was going upon a journey. Yet now, as overcomeby his intense sympathy, his long-suppressed love welled out from hisheart toward her, with a happy cry she nestled close within his arms,and cried for joy, a joy that was hers for the first time, yet whichmight have illumined all her declining days, had she not brushed itaway from her.

  A long silence ensued, presently broken by the woman, as she slowlyrelated the following story.

  "Years ago, no matter how many, I was a pretty woman, and a vain one.I had admirers, but I loved none as I loved myself. But at last onecame, and then my life was changed. I loved him, and I began todespise myself. For the more I saw and loved him, the less likely itseemed that he could love me. I used all my arts in vain. My prettiestfrocks, my most coquettish glances, were all wasted on him. It seemedto me that I had not even made him see that I might be won, if hewould woo. He went away, and I thought that I would never meet himagain, for he had been but a summer visitor. My heart was broken, andbesides my pride was hurt, for I suffered the bitterness of beingtaunted with my failure by my sisters. A year later, he came to meagain. Several months before, I had gone to live in Boston, but insome way he had found me out. To my surprise, he told me that he knewthat I loved him. He said that he had not offered me his love, becausehe was already married. Then he asked me to do him a favor. I gladlyassented, without knowing what he would ask, for I would havesacrificed anything for him, I loved him so. The next day he broughtme a beautiful baby boy. He told me it was his, that his wife was ill,and that he wished me to care for the baby for a year, whilst he wentto Europe. I undertook the charge, without considering theconsequences. I returned to the farm, bound to secrecy as to thechild's parentage. Very soon I discovered that my friends shunned me,and then I learned that by taking you, Leon, I had lost my good name.Well! I did not care. You were his baby! You had his eyes, and so myheart grew hard against the world, but I determined to keep the babywhose fingers had already gripped my heart. Then, shut out from allfriendships, scorned even by my sisters to whom I had refused to makeany explanation, I began to pray that something, anything, wouldhappen so that you should not be taken from me. My wicked prayer wasanswered, for later I learned that the young mother had died, and Iwas to continue caring for you. At first my joy was very great, butsoon I recognized, that you were mine only because I had prayed forthe death of your mother. The Lord had granted my wish, as aneverlasting punishment for my sinful longing. Thenceforward, howevermuch I yearned to press you to my heart, I have not dared to do so. Ihave tried to accept the chastisement of the Lord with meekness ofspirit. And so I have had my wish! I have kept you with me, ever to bea reproach for my sin. But I thank the Lord, that at the end he hasallowed me to have one full moment of happiness. He has granted me theboon to see that my boy has learned to love me in spite of all myharshness. You have kissed me, Leon, and called me mother. Oh! God!Thy will be done!"

  Then with a smile almost of beatitude, she sank down lower, andnestled closer to her long-denied love. Leon stooped and kissed heragain, but did not speak. His heart was full, and his emotions rosewithin his breast, so that he felt a curious sensation of fulness inhis throat, which warned him not to essay speech.

  In silence they remained so for a time, not computed by either. Shewas lost in thoughts such as have been aroused in many hearts by thepoet's magic words, "It might have been!" This boy was his, and mighthave been hers, if----! Ah! What chasms have been bridged by these twoletters, which form this little, mighty word!

  Leon began to grasp, but slowly, all that the future would hold forhim with the added knowledge granted to him this night. He ponderedover the past, and remembering how stern had been his life, and howaustere had been the manner of this woman who had been his mother, andadding up the sum of all, he wondered that he had found such love forher within his heart. For his love had been recognized by himself assuddenly as he had given fervent expression to it, when he embracedthat mother who denied her motherhood. If the poet's words which Ihave quoted conceal a thought of sadness within their meaning, whatwoe resides within the thought encompassed by those other words, "Toolate!" To both of these, the woman and the boy, the recognition of thejoys of love, had come too late. As this thought at last penetratedthe mind of the dreaming youth, he started, awakening from hisabstraction. At
the same moment, the lamp flared up, flickered, andwent out. Then as darkness enshrouded him, so deep that he almost feltit touch his brow, he shivered, and a long moan escaped him followedby an anguished cry:

  "Mother!"

  At last he realized what he had heard. In two ways was he to lose whatall good men hold dearest on this earth: a mother. First, she deniedthe relationship; second, she had told him that she was dying. Noanswer came back to his cry. The woman in his arms made no sound. Shedid not stir. He leaned his ear against her heart. It had ceased tobeat. She was dead. Her spirit had slipped away, unnoticed by theloving boy whose arms encircled her shrivelled form, but whose lovefull surely lighted her way up among the stars! Up, to that mysteriousrealm, too vast for human thought, too limitless for human mind; wherethe sinning and the sinless meet their deserts. However much of wrongor of error there had been in her life, in the moment of death shefound true happiness; and I am grateful to her for arousing thethought, that we may all end our lives in peace. And so I leave her.

  But the boy? The youth now left to buffet with the world alone? I willask you to follow him as, with a heart crowded with anguish andresentment, he rushed bareheaded out into the night, and swiftly spedthrough the wood. For he is well worth following. He has reached animportant epoch in his life, a turning point at which he abandons hisboyish past and becomes a man.

  Could he have been asked why he ran, or whither, he would have foundhimself bewildered and at a loss for a reply. Yet it is easilyexplainable. His home-life had never been attractive to him, nor inany way satisfying to his temperament, which, indeed, as we shall see,was such that he was ever in ill-concealed rebellion against therestraints of his surroundings, which threatened to crush hisintellectual yearnings. Nevertheless, it was his home, so endeared tohim by long association, that the sudden realization of the complexidea, first, that he did love this home, and second that he would nowlose it forever, coming to him instantaneously, overwhelmed him.

  He felt a dull pain in his breast, which made him almost imagine thatsome heavy body had been thrust within his bosom, and weighed heavilyagainst his heart, interfering with that vital organ, so that theblood coursed sluggishly, and the lungs were loath to do their duty.Thus stifling, though only in imagination, he was instinctivelycompelled to rush out into the air, which cooled the fever in hisveins. He ran, impelled by a mysterious feeling akin to fear, yet notfear, which exists within the breasts of all mankind, however loudlyone individual may declare himself exempt, and which is aroused whenone is suddenly brought into the presence of the dead, alone, and forthe first time. Leon had never seen death before, although he had ofcourse seen the dead, coffined and made ready for the grave. But henow passed through an entirely new experience. In one moment he heldwithin his arms a living, breathing being whom he loved; and in thenext he gazed upon a voiceless, senseless, shocking thing, and loathedit. It was from this thing, and from the house where this thing nowlay, that he was running. But, as I have said, he did not know it atthe time, and probably would have spurned the suggestion a day later.But, the fact remains that it was true.

  Where he was going, is explainable by a simpler course of analysis. Hewas going to the lake. He was going to his boat. He was going out uponthe water away from the companionship of that dead thing on land. Hewas going out upon the water, to be alone, and to find solace in hisloneliness. In this, he but followed involuntarily a habit which hehad practised for several years. When his home-life had pressed mosthardly upon him at times, he had slipped away from the little farm,and rowed his boat out upon the lake, for self-communion and comfort.So now, without realizing that he had chosen any special direction inhis flight, or that he had any fixed purpose in his mind, he ranswiftly along the wood-choppers' path, until at length he stoppedpanting on a bit of narrow beach. He stood silent for a moment, andthen concluded to get his boat and go out upon the lake. Or rather, hethought that he formed this decision at that moment, but really itoriginated when he turned towards the lake, rather than towards thenext neighbor. It was therefore not companionship, but solitude whichhe sought.

  Within five minutes he was rowing lustily across the mirror-likesurface of Massabesic, out towards the widest portion. The day hadbeen insufferably warm, it being mid-summer, but in this region thenights are usually cool. This night was balmy. Mars had appeared, aglowing red ball, above the eastern horizon, early in the evening, andan hour later the almost full moon had climbed up high enough to shedher silver rays across the waters. Later still the breeze had diedaway, and slowly the bosom of the lake grew quiet, as though even thewaters had drifted into slumberous repose. When Leon started out inhis boat, almost immediately his ruffled soul recognized the influenceof the deadly calm surrounding him, for though at first he dipped hisoars deep, and rowed vigorously, making the light bark leap upward atevery pull, before he had gone a quarter of a mile, he stroked hisoars with lessening vehemence, and presently, as though thoroughlyawed by the stillness, and fearful of creating the noise even of aripple, he was straining every nerve to dip and withdraw his oars, andto move his boat along without a sound. After a few minutes of this,he slowly raised both oars, letting them rest across the gunwalesuntil the last drop of water had dripped off, and the last series ofcircles caused thereby had disappeared, and then, with the care anddelicacy of one who moves about a chamber where some loved one isasleep who must not be disturbed, he placed his oars gently in theboat, and sat motionless.

  Already Mars had almost reached the tops of the trees along thewestern banks, and, attracted by it, Leon gazed upon the planet untilit disappeared. He had been still for ten minutes, and havingrecognized that all was quiet about him, and having abandoned hisrowing, he was now mildly surprised to observe that his boat was in atotally different position; that in fact he had drifted a longdistance. This awakened him slightly from his reverie, for here was anew bit of knowledge about a body of water with which he had beenacquainted since his earliest recollection. He had never known, noreven suspected, that in a calm there could be a current. He endeavoredto calculate by observation how fast he was moving; but the task wasdifficult. He could readily discern that since abandoning his oars hehad moved a hundred yards, but, however intently he gazed upon theshores, he could not detect that he was moving. He pondered over thisfor a time, and being of a philosophical turn of mind, and fond ofspeculating, he likened his position at the moment, to life ingeneral. However little we suspect it, there is an unseen but potentenergy which urges us forward towards----the grave, and----whateverfollows death.

  This idea pleased him for a moment, for the analogy was a new one andoriginal with himself, in so far, that he had never head it fromanother. Quickly, however, returning to the more practical problem, hedetermined to find a way to ascertain the rapidity with which his boatwas moving. Placing a fishing-rod upright before him, and then closingone eye, gazing with the other at a conspicuous object along thehorizon, immediately he could see, not only that he was moving, butthat the motion was more rapid than he had suspected. Having thussatisfied the immediate and momentary questioning of an inquiringmind, his previous mental state, his loneliness and desolation,returned upon him with redoubled force. A moment later, Nature offeredhim another abstraction. Looking into the water he saw mirrored therethe reflection of the moon. Not the stream of undulating silver overwhich poets have raved these many years, and which painters havefruitlessly essayed to convey to canvass, but the glorious, full,round orb itself. This he had never seen before, and he wondered whyit should be. Almost as though in answer to his thought, a faintzephyr breathed across the surface of the waters, and beginning nearthe shores, the ripples rolled towards him, and with them brought theshimmering moonlight until all in a moment, the reflected orb haddisappeared, and the usual silvery line of light replaced it. Thus hesaw, that only water in motion will show the moonbeams, whilst amirror, whether it be of glass, or the still bosom of the lake,reflects but the moon itself.

  Again he returned to the bitterness of his night'
s experience, andnow, no longer attracted by the moon, and not caring how fast orwhither he drifted, he lay back in his boat, pillowing his head upona cushion on the seat in the stern, and gazed up into the sky thusoblivious of the landscape and so without an indication of hisprogress.

  His mind reverted to the house, and the dead woman. She was not hismother. Then who was she? Or rather who was he? She was, or had been,Margaret Grath, and he had thought that he was entitled to the nameLeon Grath. But if she was not, or had not been, his mother, thenplainly he had no right to her name. On considering this, he concludedthat it was his privilege to call himself Leon, but the last nameGrath, being obtainable legally only by inheritance, he must abandon.When the word "inheritance" crossed his thoughts, involuntarily a loudmocking laugh escaped him. And when the sonorous echoes laughed withhim, he laughed again, and again. The drollery which aroused hismirth, was that, if a name might be inherited, why might not MargaretGrath have bequeathed hers to him? Perhaps she might have mentioned itin her will? But no! A name is a heritage acquired at birth, whilstonly chattels are included in an inheritance which follows a death.Evidently he was nameless, except that he might be called Leon, justas his collie answered to the name Lossy. This made him laugh again.For now he thought that his dog had fared better than himself, for hewas called "The Marquis of Lossy," after MacDonald's Malcolm. Thus thecollie was of noble blood, whilst he was----only Leon, the child ofnobody. As he reached this point, the moon dipped down below thewestern hill, the upper edge shedding its last rays across the boy andhis boat, after which he was indeed enshrouded by the night. It seemedcolder too, now that the orb had gone, and insensibly he felt in someway more alone. True, there were the stars, still twinkling in thefirmament, but they seemed far away, like his own future. Still Leondreamed on.

  As he could not lift the veil which parted him from what was to be, hewandered back in thought, recalling what had been.

  The Theosophist says that man has lived before upon this planet,inhabiting many corporeal forms, and drifting through many earthlyexistences. The Sceptic cries: "Ridiculous! but, granting thepostulate, of what advantage is it to have lived before, or to liveagain, if in each earth-life I cannot recall those that have gonebefore?" Yet, without arguing for Theosophy, might I not remind thissceptic that he enjoys his life to-day, even though he might find itdifficult to recall yesterday, or the day before, or a week, a month,a year ago? How many of us in looking backward over life's path, cansummon up the phantoms of more than a few days? Days on which occurredsome events of special moment?

  The first landmark along his life's path, which stood out conspicuousamong Leon's garnered memories, was his first visit to the church.Margaret Grath had dressed him in his brightest frock, curled hishair, and placed upon his head his newest bonnet. His heart hadswelled with pride, as he trotted beside the tall, gaunt, New Englandwoman, who walked with long strides, and held his hands, lest heshould lag behind. But though his legs grew tired, he offered norebellion, for he had often looked upon the red brick building, withwondering eyes, and his ears had oft been mystified at the tolling ofthe bell which swung and sounded, though moved by no hand that hecould see, nor means that he could understand. He marvelled at theoutside of the building, its steeple marking it a house apart fromevery other in the village, and he long had yearned to see it fromwithin. On this day, to which his thought now turned, he had his wish.He followed Miss Grath down the aisle, clinging to her skirts, alittle frightened at the people sitting straight and stiff, and he wasrejoiced when he found himself at last on a comfortable cushion in thepew. The cushion was a treat; being his first experience with suchluxury, and confirmed his idea that the church was better than otherhouses. Presently he began to be accustomed to his surroundings,having viewed all the walls, the roof, the organ, and the pulpit,until his active mind was satisfied so far as concerned the buildingitself. Then he began to feel the silence, and he did not like it. Helonged to speak, but did not dare, because when he timidly looked up,Miss Grath, catching his glance, scowled reproachfully, and lookedstraight before her. Small and young as he was, he had learned to knowthis woman with whom he lived, and he needed no more explicit warningto hold his tongue. So he sat still, adding to the silence whichoppressed him.

  It was with a sigh of relief that he saw the preacher rise, and heardhim speak; and it was with a throb of intense joy that his heartwarmed as the notes of the organ reached him for the first time in hislife. Thenceforward he was interested up to the point where the sermonbegan. The tiresome monotone in which this was delivered, and theimpossibility of his comprehending what was said, soon fatigued hislittle brain, and then lulled him to sleep.

  I may mention parenthetically, what of course did not now enter Leon'smind, for he never knew the subject of that first sermon which hadbeen preached at him. If it had been incomprehensible to the child,the woman had understood well enough, for it had been aimed at herespecially. The preacher, I cannot call him a minister, for he trulyministered unto none except himself, the preacher then, was a cold,hard Scotchman, High Church of course. He firmly believed in thedamnation of infants, and a Hell of which the component parts would bebrimstone and fire in proper proportions. He also believed in theefficacy of prayer, especially of his own. Therefore, it notinfrequently happened, that when any one incurred his ill will, whichwas not difficult, he would offer up a prayer, consigning saidindividual to the hottest tortures of the world below. He did this soadroitly, that, while there were no plain personalities in his words,his description of the sinner would be so specific, that the party ofthe second part readily identified himself as the central figure ofthe excoriation.

  Now this saintly preacher had at one time demeaned himself, or so hethought, sufficiently low to offer himself in marriage to MissMargaret Grath. She had declined the honor, and he had hated her everafter. Like all true women, however, she had kept his secret, so thatnone of the congregation knowing the relation which existed, or whichmight have existed, between them, none could read between the lines ofhis sermons, when he chose to lash her by a savage denunciation of anymild backsliding, of which she might have been guilty, and himselfcognizant. Her return to the village with the child, who had novisible father, and no mother, unless the guesses of the gossips werecorrect, had afforded him opportunity for a most masterly peroration.But he belched forth his greatest eloquence on that Sunday morning,when she had the temerity to bring into the sacred confines of hissanctuary this fatherless boy, for whose sake she had chosen to live alonely life. If his prayer of that morning proved efficacious, thensurely the infant was damned, and the woman's soul consigned toendless Purgatory. Thus the day to which Leon recurred in thought, wasa landmark in another life beside his, and I have turned aside for amoment to relate this incident, that the character of Miss Grath maybe better comprehended, for in spite of all that she had sufferedthrough the animosity of the preacher, she had never omittedattendance at church, when it was a physical possibility for her toget there. It must be true that some of her determination and willdescended from her to the boy, because association means more thanheredity.

  The next occurrence in his life, which now occupied his thoughts, wasa day long after, when he was nearing his twelfth year. He was off ona hunting expedition, and had climbed a mountain. Careless in leapingfrom crag to crag, he landed upon a loose boulder, which rolled fromunder his feet, so that he was thrown. In falling, his foot twisted,and a moment later, intense pain made him aware that he could not walkupon it. For four hours he slowly, but pluckily, dragged himself downthe mountain, and at last reached home. It so chanced that acelebrated physician from New York was spending a vacation in theneighborhood, attracted perhaps by the brooks, which were full offish. This man was Dr. Emanuel Medjora, and having heard of the boy'shurt, he voluntarily visited the lonely farm-house, and attended uponhim so skilfully that Leon soon was well.

  Just why the thought of Dr. Medjora should come to him at this timewas a problem to Leon, but one upon which he did not dwell.
After thatsummer, he had seen the Doctor again at various times, two or threeyears apart, always at vacation-time. But it was now three years sincethey had met.

  Swiftly his thoughts passed along the years of his life, until theystopped for a moment, arrested by an incident worthy of beingchronicled. I have said that Leon lay in his boat, face skyward, andallowed his bark to drift whither it would. Thus he had not noted hisprogress until a crunching sound startled him, and he became awarethat his boat had found a landing-place, having grounded amidst thesands of a little cove, sheltered by a high rock and overhangingshrubbery. Forced thus from his abstraction into some cognizance ofhis whereabouts, Leon, without raising his head, merely became awareof the branches and leaves overhead, and peered through them. Almostin the midst of the green, he saw what seemed to be a brilliant butmonstrous diamond, pendent from a branch. In the next instant herecognized that he was gazing upon Venus, the morning star, which hadrisen during his reverie, and now shone resplendent and mostbeautiful. It was just at this moment, that the incident occurred towhich I have alluded. Suddenly it seemed to him that the whole of hissurroundings were familiar. Everything had occurred before. His boatdrifting into the cove, the shrubbery overhead, and Venus in the sky;all that he now realized, in the most minute detail, had held a placein his experience before. Such a phenomenon is not uncommon. All of ushave been impressed similarly. Indeed, some Theosophists, trying toprove a previous life for man, have reverted to this well-knownfeeling, and have claimed that here is a recollection of a formervisit to this earth. But Leon, young philosopher though he was, wouldhave laughed in scorn at such an argument. He had considered thisproblem, and had solved it satisfactorily for himself. His explanationwas thus. Man's brain is divided into two hemispheres. Usually theyact co-ordinately, but it is possible that, at least momentarily, theymay operate independently. It is a fact that the phenomenon underconsideration seldom, or never occurs, except when the mind is greatlyinterested or occupied. Something, perhaps in itself the meresttrifle, diverts the mind from the intensity of its attention. Thisdiversion leads by a train of circumstances to a long-forgottenmemory, and one hemisphere of the brain reverts to a moment in thepast, the other continuing intent upon its surroundings. Within aninfinitesimal period of time, a period too brief to be calculable,both hemispheres are again acting in unison. The abstraction has beenso brief, and the cause of it is so dimly defined, that the mind isoblivious of what has occurred, except that, as the divertedhemisphere again takes cognizance of its previous thoughts, and againrecognizes the environment of the present, the phenomenon of a dualexperience is noted. Of course the scene is identically the same asthat which is remembered, because it is the same scene. And theprevious experience will impress the individual as having occurredlong ago, in exact proportion to the date of that circumstance towhich one hemisphere has reverted.

  Therefore, Leon did not, at this time, speculate upon the mystery,which he thought he understood, but he welcomed the advent of along-sought opportunity, to trace out the cause of such anabstraction, so fleeting in its nature.

  He was occupied thus, for half an hour, but at length believed that hehad analyzed the experience. The turning-point, at which he had beendiverted, was when he first recognized Venus. And now he rememberedthat occasion when he had gone upon a journey. Away from his home forthe first time in his life, he felt many sensations which I need notrecord here. But one amusement had been to sit at night studying thestars, and from them fixing the position of the buildings on the homefarm, in relation to those where he was then abiding. One evening,when watching Venus, then the evening star, he was looking across apool of water, and trying to imagine himself back on Massabesic, withthe same planet setting behind the western hill, when, turning hishead, he saw a young and beautiful girl standing near him. As his eyesabandoned the planet for the woman, he was startled by the thoughtthat the goddess had been re-embodied. A moment later, the girl askedhim for some information relating to the nearest way to her home,which he gave, and she walked on. He had never seen her since, nor hadhe thought of her again. But now, having analyzed his thoughts andtraced them back from the star to that girl, her face thus summonedseemed to take the place of the planet in the heavens, and to gazedown upon him with an assuring smile, which somehow made him feel thatthe future might hold something for him after all.

  What that something might be, he did not even try to guess. Therefore,you must not adopt the conclusion that Leon thus suddenly fell in lovewith a girl whose face had been seen by him but once. No idea withinhis mind, connected with that face, was now coupled with a thought ofher as an earthly being. He merely summoned up the image of a lovelybeing, and felt himself refreshed, and hope returning.

  A few moments later the twilight brightened and the first red borderof the sun, peeping over the tops of the trees, shed a warming rayupon Leon, thus awakened from his dreamy night into the first day ofhis manhood.