Melisse, tightening her arms
around his neck, made his promise sacred by offering her little
rosebud of a mouth for him to kiss. Later, the restless spirit
slumbering within his breast urged him to speak to Cummins.
"When Melisse is a little older, should we not go with her into the
South?" he said. "She must not live for ever in a place like this."
Cummins looked at him for an instant as if he did not understand. When
Jan's meaning struck home, his eyes hardened, and there was the
vibrant ring of steel in his quiet voice.
"Her mother will be out there under the old spruce until the end of
time," he said slowly; "and we will never leave her--unless, some day,
Melisse goes alone."
From that hour Jan no longer looked into the box of his violin. He
struggled against the desire that had grown with his years until he
believed that he had crushed it and stamped it out of his existence.
In his life there came to be but one rising and one setting of the
sun. Melisse was his universe. She crowded his heart until beyond her
he began to lose visions of any other world.
Each day added to his joy. He called her "my little sister," and with
sweet gravity Melisse called him "brother Jan," and returned in full
measure his boundless love. He marked the slow turning of her flaxen
hair into sunny gold, and month by month watched joyfully the
deepening of that gold into warm shades of brown.
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