As if in spite of herself, the
former gladness--nay, a gladness multiplied beyond conception--
reigned once more in her heart. Her grandfather would not speak
lightly in such a matter as this; the meaning of his words was
confessed, to all eternity immutable. Had it, then, come to this?
The friend to whom she looked up with such reverence, with voiceless
gratitude, when he condescended to speak kindly to _her_, the
Peckovers' miserable little servant--he, after all these changes
and chances of life, sought her now that she was a woman, and had it
on his lips to say that he loved her. Hitherto the impossible, the
silly thought to be laughed out of her head, the desire for which
she would have chid herself durst she have faced it seriously--was
it become a very truth? 'Keep a good heart, Jane; things'll be
better some day.' How many years since the rainy and windy night
when he threw his coat over her and spoke those words? Yet she could
hear them now, and the tears that rushed to her eyes as she blessed
him for his manly goodness were as much those of the desolate child
as of the full-hearted woman.
And the change that she had observed in him since that evening at
Danbury? A real change, but only of manner.
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