She was shocked, surprised, distressed.
She burst out crying directly from blind womanly sympathy; and then she
took herself to task. "Oh, Mr. Hope! what have I done? Ah! I have
touched some chord of memory. Wicked, selfish girl, to distress you with
my dreams."
"Distress me!" cried Hope. "These tears you have drawn from me are pearls
of memory and drops of balm to my sore, tried heart. I, too, have lived
and struggled in a by-gone world. I had a lovely child; she made me rich
in my poverty, and happy in my homelessness. She left me--"
"Poor Mr. Hope!"
"Then I went abroad, drudged in foreign mines, came home and saw my child
again in you. I need no fairy's wand to revive the past; you are my
fairy--your sweet words recall those by-gone scenes; and wealth,
ambition, all I live for now, vanish into smoke. The years themselves
roll back, and all is once more peace--and poverty--and love."
"Dear Mr. Hope!" said Mary, and put her forehead upon his shoulder.
After a while she said, timidly, "Dear Mr. Hope, now I feel I can trust
you with anything.
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