He was,
as Mrs Murchison said, a great gawk of a fellow; he had
little adaptability; he was not of those who spend a year
or two in the New World and go back with a trans-Atlantic
accent, either of tongue or of mind. Where he saw a lack
of dignity, of consideration, or of restraint, he did
not insensibly become less dignified or considerate or
restrained to smooth out perceptible differences; nor
was he constituted to absorb the qualities of those
defects, and enrich his nature by the geniality, the
shrewdness, the quick mental movement that stood on the
other side of the account. He cherished in secret an
admiration for the young men of Elgin, with their
unappeasable energy and their indomitable optimism, but
he could not translate it in any language of sympathy
and but for Advena his soul would have gone uncomforted
and alone.
Advena, as we know, was his companion. Seeing herself
just that, constantly content to be just that, she walked
beside him closer than he knew. She had her woman's
prescience and trusted it. Her own heart, all sweetly
alive, counselled her to patience; her instincts laid
her in bonds to concealment. She knew, she was sure; so
sure that she could play sometimes, smiling, with her
living heart--
The nightingale was not yet heard
For the rose was not yet blown,
she could say of his; and what was that but play, and
tender laughter, at the expense of her own? And then,
perhaps, looking up from the same book, she would whisper,
alone in her room--
Oh, speed the day, thou dear, dear May,
and gaze humbly through tears at her own face in the
glass loving it on his behalf.
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