One thing no one noted. Fresh candles had replaced those
burnt out on the Tree the night before: all the candles were white
now.
Revellers! Revellers! A crowded canvas! A brilliantly painted scene!
Controlling everything, controlling herself, the lady of the house:
hunting out her guests with some grace that befitted each; laughing
and talking with the doctor; secretly giving most attention to the
doctor's wife--faded little sufferer; with strength in her to be the
American wife and mother in the home of the poet's dream: the
spiritual majesty of her bridal veil still about her amid life's snow
as it never lifts itself from the face of the _Jungfrau_ amid the
sad most lovely mountains: the American wife and mother!--herself the
_Jungfrau_ among the world's women!
The last thing before the company broke up took place what often takes
place there in happy gatherings: the singing of the song of the State
which is also a song of the Nation--its melody of the unfallen home:
with sadness enough in it, God knows, but with sanctity: she seated at
the piano--the others upholding her like a living bulwark.
There was another company thronging the rooms that no one wot of:
those Bodiless Ones that often are much more real than the
embodied--the Guests of the Imagination.
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