are of his wife, and not let her get bent, either, and
the Lord knows I'm thankful."

He felt Sylvia's little nervous hand on his arm, and a great
tenderness for her was over him. He had not a thought of blame or
shame on her account.

Instead, he looked at Rose, blooming under her bridal flowers, not so
much smiling as beaming with a soft, remote radiance, like a star,
and he said to himself: "Thank the Lord that she will never get so
warped and twisted as to what is right and wrong by the need of money
to keep soul and body together, that she will have to do what my wife
has done, and bear such a burden on her pretty shoulders."

It seemed to Henry that never, not even in his first wedded rapture,
had he loved his wife as he loved her that night. He glanced at her,
and she looked wonderful to him; in fact, there was in Sylvia's face
that night an element of wonder. In it spirit was manifest, far above
and crowning the flesh and its sordid needs. Her shoulders, under the
fine lace gown, were bent; her very heart was bent; but she saw the
goal where she could lay her burden down.

The music began again. People thronged around the bride and groom.
There were soft sounds of pleasant words, gentle laughs, and happy
rejoinders. Everybody smiled. They witnessed happiness with perfect
sympathy. It cast upon them rosy reflections. And yet every one bore,
unseen or seen, the burden of his or her world upon straining
shoulders. The grand, pathetic tragedy inseparable from life, which
Atlas symbolized, moved multiple at the marriage feast, and yet love
would in the end sanctify it for them all.

THE END

End of Project Gutenberg's The Shoulders of Atlas, by Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

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