A little longer and she
was compelled to yield, and the silent tears flowed freely.
Letty, too, was overcome--more than ever she had been by music.
She was not so open to its influences as Mary, but her eyes were
full, and she sat thinking of her Tom, far in the regions that
are none the less true that we can not see them.
A mood had taken shape in the mind of the blacksmith, and
wandered from its home, seeking another country. It is not the
ghosts of evil deeds that alone take shape, and go forth to
wander the earth. Let but a mood be strong enough, and the soul,
clothing itself in that mood as with a garment, can walk abroad
and haunt the world. Thus, in a garment of mood whose color and
texture was music, did the soul of Joseph Jasper that evening,
like a homeless ghost, come knocking at the door of Mary Marston.
It was the very being of the man, praying for admittance, even as
little Abel might have crept up to the gate from which his mother
had been driven, and, seeing nothing of the angel with the
flaming sword, knocked and knocked, entreating to be let in,
pleading that all was not right with the world in which he found
himself. And there Mary saw Joseph stand, thinking himself alone
with his violin; and the violin was his mediator with her, and
was pleading and pleading for the admittance of its master. It
prayed, it wept, it implored.
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