But that interest was very much increased by the
opportunities it gave him of seeing and talking to sweet Mary Bartley.
Not that he was forward or indiscreet. She was not yet sixteen, and he
tried to remember she was a child.
Unfortunately for that theory she looked a ripe woman, and this very
Walter made her more and more womanly. Whenever Walter was near she had
new timidity, new blushes, fewer gushes, less impetuosity, more reserve.
Sweet innocent! She was set by Nature to catch the man by the surest way,
though she had no such design.
Oh, it was a pretty, subtle piece of nature, and each sex played its
part. Bold advances of the man, with internal fear to offend, mock
retreats of the girl, with internal throbs of complacency, and life
invested with a new and growing charm to both. Leaving this pretty little
pastime to glide along the flowery path that beautifies young lives to
its inevitable climax, we go to a matter more prosaic, yet one that
proved a source of strange and stormy events.
Hope had hardly started the farm when Bartley sent him off to Belgium--TO
STUDY COAL MINES.
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