Then she
suddenly sat down, took it up with a grave practical face, examined the
postmark curiously, and opened it with severe deliberation. It contained
a manuscript and a letter of four closely written pages. She glanced at
the manuscript with bright approving eyes, ran her fingers through its
leaves and then laid it carefully and somewhat ostentatiously on the
table beside her. Then, still holding the letter in her hand, she rose
and glanced out of the window at her bored brother lounging towards the
beach and at the heaving billows beyond, and returned to her seat. This
apparently important preliminary concluded, she began to read.
There were, as already stated, four blessed pages of it! All vital,
earnest, palpitating with youthful energy, preposterous in premises,
precipitate in conclusions,--yet irresistible and convincing to every
woman in their illogical sincerity. There was not a word of love in it,
yet every page breathed a wholesome adoration; there was not an epithet
or expression that a greater prude than Mrs. Ashwood would have objected
to, yet every sentence seemed to end in a caress. There was not a
line of poetry in it, and scarcely a figure or simile, and yet it was
poetical. Boyishly egotistic as it was in attitude, it seemed to be
written less OF himself than TO her; in its delicate because unconscious
flattery, it made her at once the provocation and excuse.
Pages:
183
184
185
186
187
188
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207