Emily and I were troubled. We had once feared that our good brother and
friend would pass through life as a blind man wanders through a
flower-garden, lost to its chief beauty and sweetness. But his eyes had
been opened. And now was his life-path to lead him into a thorny
wilderness? was a worse darkness to settle down upon him?
I fancied there was a hopeless look in his face,--that he shrank into
himself more than ever. The Doctor's boy had fairer gifts than he to
offer, and no lack of well-chosen words. It was with the utmost
uneasiness that I caught, occasionally, some of these telling phrases. I
liked not his air of devotedness, his eye constantly following Mary
Ellen's movements. I liked not the flower-gatherings, the rambles among
the rocks, the rowing by moonlight. Emily's short sentence came often to
mind, "I fear."
For I felt almost sure that Warren Luce was in earnest,--that he was
deeply and truly in love with Mary Ellen. Not that he intended this at
first, but that her beauty conquered him. Most likely this was the first
of his knowing he had a heart, 'twas so small.
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