THE BLUEJAY

When Mary Virginia was graduated, my mother sent her, to commemorate that very important and pleasant occasion, one of her few remaining treasures—­a carved ivory fan which Le Brun had painted out of his heart of hearts for one of King Louis’ loveliest ladies.  It still exhaled, like a whiff of lost roses, something of her vanished grace.

“I have a fancy,” wrote my mother to Mary Virginia, “that having been pressed against women’s bosoms and held in women’s hands, having been, as it were, symbols which expressed the hidden emotions of the heart, these exquisite toys have thus been enabled to gain a soul, a soul composed of sentience and of memory.  I think that as they lie all the long, long years in those carved and scented boxes which are like little tombs, they remember the lights and the flowers and the perfumes, the glimmer and gleam of jewels and silks, the frothy fall of laces, the laughter and whispers and glances, the murmured word, the stifled sigh:  and above all, the touch of soft lips that used to brush them lightly; and the poor things wonder a bit wistfully what has become of all that gay and lovely life, all that perished bravery and beauty that once they knew.  So I am quite sure this apparently soulless bit of carved ivory sighs inaudibly to feel again the touch of a warm and young hand, to be held before gay and smiling eyes, to have a flower-fresh face bent over it once more.

“Accept it, then, my child, with your old friend’s love.  Use it in your happy hours, dream over it a little, sigh lightly; and then smile to remember that this is your Hour, that you are young, and life and love are yours.  It is in such youthful and happy smiles that we whose day declines may relive for a brief and bright space our golden noon.  Shall I tell you a secret, before your time to know it? Youth alone is eternal and immortal! How do I know? ’Et Ego in Arcadia vixi!’”

Mary Virginia showed me that letter, long afterward, and I have inserted it here, although I suppose it really isn’t at all relevant.  But I shall let it stand, because it is so like my mother!

John Flint made for the schoolgirl a most wonderful tray with handles and border of hammered and twisted copper.  The tray itself was covered with a layer of silvery thistle-down; and on this, hovering above flowers, some of his loveliest butterflies spread their wings.  So beautifully did their frail bodies fit into this airy bed, so carefully was the work done, that you might fancy only the glass which covered them kept them from escaping.

“You will remember telling me, when you were going away to grow up,” wrote John Flint, “to watch out for any big fine fellows that came by of a morning, because they’d be messengers from you to the Parish House people.  Big and little they’ve come, and I’ve played like they were all of them your carriers.  So you see we had word of you every single day of