BOOK IICHAPTER XXIIIWHITE BLOSSOMSITwas on one of those days which seem to occur only in our youth, that Isoline Ridgeway sat under a cherry-tree on the slope of the field overlooking Crishowell Vicarage. The little puffs of wind which occasionally lifted stray bits of her hair were scented with the scent of may hedges; the whole world seemed to have broken out into white blossom.The tree above her head was such a mass of shivering, semi-transparent petals against the blue of the sky, that the endless perspective of bloom held reminiscences of a Japanese painting. At her feet the hill sloped down to the brook and the Vicarage orchard. Below, in a declivity of the field where a spring’s course could be traced by the deeper green of the grass to a circle of wet ground, a crop of marsh-marigolds held their cups vigorously above the succulent stems, and green, tea-tray leaves, coarse children of the brown, earth-stained water. Looking beyond the church she could see the indigo outline of the Brecon Hills.Since the day on which she had left Waterchurch Court three months had gone by, and Harry, on whose expected visit she built so much, had not yet been to Crishowell. Not that this was due to neglect on his part, for things had taken an ill turn, and Mr. Lewis, a few days after his return home, had developed an attack of asthma, to which he was subject, and been told by his doctor that only a complete and immediate change would rid him of the enemy. So uncle and niece had departed almostat a day’s notice, returning in a month to find that Harry had left home, and was expected back in a few weeks.The disappointment had been keen, but a sustaining belief in her own attractions had helped her through it, and an inward certainty that when he returned he would not delay his coming. Sometimes, it is true, a misgiving would creep into her mind, for she knew that he had gone to London, and the “fine ladies” who, in her imagination, peopled the greater part of the metropolis, might be casting their lures to entangle the feet of so personable a young gentleman. But her fears did not last long, and she argued sensibly enough that these houris would be no new thing to him, and that experience of their devilries had not deterred him from falling down before herself. Was he not fresh from the wicked city when they had first met? She would not disquiet herself, and she did not.Seeing her so willing to return to the dullness of Crishowell, Mr. Lewis had taken it as a good sign of contentment with her surroundings, and he noted her growing inclination to outdoor exercise with a pleased surprise; it seemed that, after all, her stay with him was to be of some use in directing her mind towards healthy pleasures. He was also a little relieved at finding her able and willing to ramble about by herself, and apparently unresentful at being left so much alone. His parish and his books, his archæology and his correspondence kept him so busy, that a niece who expected much of him would have been a serious inconvenience. He treated her with unvarying kindness and courtesy, but he sighed sometimes as he searched vainly for some trait which should remind him of her dead aunt, the wife he had loved. He had always passed for a self-centred man to whom the fellowship of his kind was trivial, but though his reading and his duties now formed his world, there was a chasm in his life which had opened years before he had come to Crishowell, and was gaping still. As a mere tribute to convention, he would now and then delude himself into the belief that he liked Isoline, but he knew in his heart of hearts that it was only a delusion. He had not caredmuch for his wife’s family, and the girl was essentially her father’s daughter.One of the first things she had done on getting home was to go to the Pedlar’s Stone to meet Rhys Walters, and before her departure she had managed to get to the solitary spot to bid him good-bye. He had taken the news she brought hardly, crying out against all the possible rivals that his jealous heart pictured as assailing her in the semi-fashionable place to which her uncle was ordered. But there was nothing for it but patience, and he got through the time as best he could. The Pig-driver, who kept him supplied with food, was also ready to supply him with Crishowell news, and through him he at last heard of the Vicar’s return. Though the days were lengthening, and risk of discovery was greater in consequence, he was at the trysting-place when she appeared. He looked worn and thin, and it was evident by the lines in his face that he had suffered in her absence.If one lover were away there was still the other left to keep her amused, and it made her the more gracious to the one who remained. The light evenings were no obstacle to the infatuated man, and he was at the Pedlar’s Stone daily almost before the sun had set, though he knew that he was risking the little he had left to risk by his action. In the night he constructed a sort of rampart of dead thorn-bushes, disposing them so artfully around a little hollow in the vicinity of the dreaded stone, that if by some strange chance any one should be bold enough to pass by, he and Isoline would be unseen as they sat in the declivity on the further side of it. He reached the place by the most devious ways, taking cover wherever he could find it, sometimes almost crawling along an ancient ditch which ran up the hill, and when the beloved woman had left him, lying in the hollow till the descent of darkness.As she sat in its shadow, the girl herself looked like the spirit of the blossoming tree. Her white dress was spread round her on the grass, and her shady hat dangled by a white ribbon from her hand. Even she was impressed by the beautyof the thing above her as she twirled a tuft of flowers in her fingers, wondering whether artificial cherry-blossoms were to be got, and resolving, if so, to trim her next ball-dress with them. She stuck some in her hat and put it on her head, then, remembering that there was no mirror at hand in which the effect could be seen, laughed and tossed it down beside her. A great buzzing fly went past with a hum of wings; but for that the whole world was still; everything was radiating life, and only the yew-tree in the churchyard beneath her laid a dark spot on the uninterrupted flow of light. A man on horseback was turning away from her uncle’s door. He must have come up from the road by a footpath, for she had not seen him arrive. Her heart jumped, for it was Harry—Harry riding away, having evidently been told that Mr. Lewis was out. He passed by the stile at the foot of the field, and suddenly looking up, saw her white figure on the slope.He sprang off, calling Howlie (who was by the duck-pond observing him) to take his horse, and in a moment he had vaulted the stile and was coming towards her.She awaited him smiling, a lovely colour spread over her face.“May I stay here?” he asked rather shyly, as he came up.“Oh, certainly,” she replied.“I so nearly missed you,” he exclaimed, as he threw himself upon the grass beside her. “Your uncle was not in. Fancy, if I had not seen you and had gone back again! Do you know I only got home two days ago, and I have come the very first moment I could get away.”“Have you been in London, Mr. Fenton?”“All the time,” said he.Isoline sighed. “I should so like to go to London. Were you very gay?” she asked.“Not so very,” said Harry, laughing.“Did you go to any balls?”“I went to three.”“Oh, tell me. And what were the ladies like? Did they wear beautiful dresses and grand diamonds?”“Yes, I think they did. But I didn’t notice much.”“But what were they like? Can you not rememberanything?If I went to London I should not forget what I saw.”“But you are cleverer than I am.”“Oh, I don’t think you are stupid at all,” she said, looking coyly down at her fingers. “I suppose gentlemen do not notice the same things that we ladies do. I hoped that when I saw you again you would be able to bring me all the new fashions.”“You knew I should come then? You did not think I should forget?”She was silent, turning her head away.“Isoline, are you glad to see me?”“Perhaps,” she said lightly, swinging her hat which she had picked up from the grass. She was so sure of him that she felt she could afford to dally with the situation.Harry was young, and his face fell a little. “I don’t believe you care a bit,” he said.Again she did not answer.He came nearer. “Isoline, will you marry me?” he asked very earnestly.A perfect flood of triumph and excitement poured into her heart, but she made no outward sign of it.“Do you really mean it, Mr. Fenton?” she said softly.“Of course I mean it, darling!” he exclaimed. “Do you know one thing that took me to London? I went to get something for you, if you will wear it. Look!” He drew a tiny case from his pocket and opened it. Inside was a ring, a diamond heart surrounded by little pearls.She clasped her hands together.“How lovely! How lovely!” she exclaimed. “And is that for me?”“Try it on,” said Harry.She held out her finger, and he slipped the jewel into its place.“It fits perfectly!” she cried, enchanted, turning her hand round and round, so that it should flash in the sun.“Darling!” he exclaimed, throwing his arm round her.“Oh, please don’t! Some one might be looking. Every one can see you from here.”“But, Isoline, do you love me?”“Yes, I do indeed!”“And you will be my wife? You haven’t said it, you know, dear.”“I will,” she said, still contemplating her left hand.“Look at me, dear, tell me you mean what you say. Are you happy, Isoline? I am.”She glanced up at him with her grey eyes full of sunshine.“I am very happy,” she murmured.Then her look swam away into the far landscape and she sat rapt, thinking of what was to come. The world she wanted was opening in front of her; the man who held the key of it had put it into her hand She wondered whether there might be lions on the threshold, and, if so, how loudly they would roar. She thought that she would not mind the roaring very much, if she could only slip by them successfully.The future was whispering to Harry too.“I wonder what your uncle will say,” he remarked at last. “I meant to have spoken to him when I arrived, but he had gone out, and so I came up here to you. He can’t refuse me, can he, Isoline?”“Oh dear, no,” she laughed, wondering at her lover’s simplicity. “How could he? Besides, I shall do as I like.”“You will never give me up, whatever may happen? Dear, dear Isoline, you couldn’t do such a thing, could you?”“What will Mr. Fenton and Lady Harriet say?”“I shall go and tell them what to say,” said Harry valiantly.“I do not think that your mother will be glad,” said she, smiling faintly.She hardly knew whether this idea was agreeable to her or not. There was a lurking antipathy in her to Lady Harriet, though she had received nothing but civility at her hands; the strangely-different point of view in small things which Harry’s mother represented had put her out. It had been uncomfortable, and she had not forgotten it. In her mind the only recognized difference between well-regulated people lay in their social positions. She rather resented the idea of a titled mother-in-law whose simple behaviour suggested an unconsciousness of her advantage.Her imagination flew on to her wedding. It should not take place at Crishowell, if she could help it. She thought of Hereford Cathedral, and the string of carriages and family chariots waiting outside the close for the company before whom she would be playing the leading part. She pictured herself in white satin and lace being conducted up the aisle, and standing with the eldest son of a county magnate before the Bishop—for no doubt Mr. Fenton would wish the Bishop to marry his son; and finally, being led out by her husband to a carriage with grey horses. She would have the wedding-favours an exact facsimile of some she had once seen, bouquets of orange-blossom which had unexpectedly put forth silver leaves, and which reposed on white satin bows with silver fringe. She was quite certain Lady Harriet had never looked so well as she would on that supreme occasion. There was only one dark blot in all her eminently satisfactory day-dream, and that was the fact that Llewellyn would probably be best man. He was neither creditable nor conciliatory.She awoke from her reverie to find Harry’s eyes fixed upon her with such passionate love and admiration that she was rather startled. So far she had considered him more as an adjunct than as any one possessing a future of his own, and fora single moment the importance of what she had done struck her.“I wonder how I shall like you,” she remarked suddenly, and without a touch of the flippancy such words might suggest. It was probably the one original thing she had said in her life.Harry looked as if he had been slapped.“Isoline! What do you mean?” he cried. “You do not want to draw back?”“Oh no,” said the girl quickly, “I only wondered if we should ever quarrel.”“Never,” he replied fervently; “I could never be angry with you, I am sure.”So they sat and looked down upon the Vicarage till a black figure crossed the churchyard.“There is my uncle,” said Isoline, taking up her hat. “We ought to go down and tell him.”“Oh, not yet,” pleaded Harry, “stay a little, dear; I shall always love this place now.”He looked up into the branches.“Is not the cherry-blossom pretty? Before you came, I was thinking how nice it would be to have a ball-dress trimmed with it. Do you think it would suit me?”“You’ll look lovely.”“And you will not forget my dresses as you forget the London fashions?” She raised her eyes archly to his.He seized her hand and kissed it, and she made no resistance, for the grass was high and the action could not be seen.It was long before he forgot the feel of the cool greenness, the touch of soft fingers as he pressed them against his lips, and the dancing of sunlight through the leaves overhead. Poor Harry, he was happy; the heavens had stooped down to earth, and he had no misgivings. Such difficulties as he foresaw were those that would melt away before the fire of his constancy. How was it conceivable that any opposition could stand againstIsoline’s beauty and sweetness? He thought of Llewellyn’s counsel and the day on which they had so nearly quarrelled by the garden door; it was strange that he—so much cleverer than himself—had taken such an extraordinary view of her character. The recollection made him quite impatient, though he told himself in his generous heart that there was no one like his brother, and that, come what might, his marriage should never in any way shadow their friendship.Time, he was certain, and a closer experience of Isoline’s society, would convince him that he had been mistaken, and he knew Llewellyn well enough to be sure that, when such a change should come to pass, his acknowledgment of his error would be complete. It would all come right, and, meanwhile, life was bathed in an untold glory.Like all young, open natures who love truly, Harry was humble. His own inferiority to the girl at his side was manifest to him as he looked up at her through the grasses. His life had been, if anything, rather more regular than that of the ordinary young man, for the extreme genuineness of his nature had necessitated that some real feeling, however transient, should direct his desires. Nevertheless, temptations that assailed others had not stepped aside in his favour, and it was a miracle to him that this creature, so delicate, so pure, so refined, should be willing to walk out of the fairy radiance of her maiden kingdom to join hands with him. The little demure air that never left her, even when she had seemed most near to him, was a charm. There was always a suggestion about her of not giving too much, and he admired it as he might have admired the delicacy of scent in a white flower.He loved refinement, though he could not distinguish between the false and the true, being younger in his mind than in his years; and it is the irony of life that a knowledge of valuations comes to many—indeed to most—when it is too late to be useful. He had reverence in him and a high ideal of womanhood; though it was a crude one, it was the best thathis youth and unanalytic nature could frame. The dainty calm and reserve with which Isoline had met his obvious love was as if the white flower grew on a height to be scaled with patience, and bloomed to be touched by one hand alone. He was not the first to mistake coldness for purity.
ITwas on one of those days which seem to occur only in our youth, that Isoline Ridgeway sat under a cherry-tree on the slope of the field overlooking Crishowell Vicarage. The little puffs of wind which occasionally lifted stray bits of her hair were scented with the scent of may hedges; the whole world seemed to have broken out into white blossom.
The tree above her head was such a mass of shivering, semi-transparent petals against the blue of the sky, that the endless perspective of bloom held reminiscences of a Japanese painting. At her feet the hill sloped down to the brook and the Vicarage orchard. Below, in a declivity of the field where a spring’s course could be traced by the deeper green of the grass to a circle of wet ground, a crop of marsh-marigolds held their cups vigorously above the succulent stems, and green, tea-tray leaves, coarse children of the brown, earth-stained water. Looking beyond the church she could see the indigo outline of the Brecon Hills.
Since the day on which she had left Waterchurch Court three months had gone by, and Harry, on whose expected visit she built so much, had not yet been to Crishowell. Not that this was due to neglect on his part, for things had taken an ill turn, and Mr. Lewis, a few days after his return home, had developed an attack of asthma, to which he was subject, and been told by his doctor that only a complete and immediate change would rid him of the enemy. So uncle and niece had departed almostat a day’s notice, returning in a month to find that Harry had left home, and was expected back in a few weeks.
The disappointment had been keen, but a sustaining belief in her own attractions had helped her through it, and an inward certainty that when he returned he would not delay his coming. Sometimes, it is true, a misgiving would creep into her mind, for she knew that he had gone to London, and the “fine ladies” who, in her imagination, peopled the greater part of the metropolis, might be casting their lures to entangle the feet of so personable a young gentleman. But her fears did not last long, and she argued sensibly enough that these houris would be no new thing to him, and that experience of their devilries had not deterred him from falling down before herself. Was he not fresh from the wicked city when they had first met? She would not disquiet herself, and she did not.
Seeing her so willing to return to the dullness of Crishowell, Mr. Lewis had taken it as a good sign of contentment with her surroundings, and he noted her growing inclination to outdoor exercise with a pleased surprise; it seemed that, after all, her stay with him was to be of some use in directing her mind towards healthy pleasures. He was also a little relieved at finding her able and willing to ramble about by herself, and apparently unresentful at being left so much alone. His parish and his books, his archæology and his correspondence kept him so busy, that a niece who expected much of him would have been a serious inconvenience. He treated her with unvarying kindness and courtesy, but he sighed sometimes as he searched vainly for some trait which should remind him of her dead aunt, the wife he had loved. He had always passed for a self-centred man to whom the fellowship of his kind was trivial, but though his reading and his duties now formed his world, there was a chasm in his life which had opened years before he had come to Crishowell, and was gaping still. As a mere tribute to convention, he would now and then delude himself into the belief that he liked Isoline, but he knew in his heart of hearts that it was only a delusion. He had not caredmuch for his wife’s family, and the girl was essentially her father’s daughter.
One of the first things she had done on getting home was to go to the Pedlar’s Stone to meet Rhys Walters, and before her departure she had managed to get to the solitary spot to bid him good-bye. He had taken the news she brought hardly, crying out against all the possible rivals that his jealous heart pictured as assailing her in the semi-fashionable place to which her uncle was ordered. But there was nothing for it but patience, and he got through the time as best he could. The Pig-driver, who kept him supplied with food, was also ready to supply him with Crishowell news, and through him he at last heard of the Vicar’s return. Though the days were lengthening, and risk of discovery was greater in consequence, he was at the trysting-place when she appeared. He looked worn and thin, and it was evident by the lines in his face that he had suffered in her absence.
If one lover were away there was still the other left to keep her amused, and it made her the more gracious to the one who remained. The light evenings were no obstacle to the infatuated man, and he was at the Pedlar’s Stone daily almost before the sun had set, though he knew that he was risking the little he had left to risk by his action. In the night he constructed a sort of rampart of dead thorn-bushes, disposing them so artfully around a little hollow in the vicinity of the dreaded stone, that if by some strange chance any one should be bold enough to pass by, he and Isoline would be unseen as they sat in the declivity on the further side of it. He reached the place by the most devious ways, taking cover wherever he could find it, sometimes almost crawling along an ancient ditch which ran up the hill, and when the beloved woman had left him, lying in the hollow till the descent of darkness.
As she sat in its shadow, the girl herself looked like the spirit of the blossoming tree. Her white dress was spread round her on the grass, and her shady hat dangled by a white ribbon from her hand. Even she was impressed by the beautyof the thing above her as she twirled a tuft of flowers in her fingers, wondering whether artificial cherry-blossoms were to be got, and resolving, if so, to trim her next ball-dress with them. She stuck some in her hat and put it on her head, then, remembering that there was no mirror at hand in which the effect could be seen, laughed and tossed it down beside her. A great buzzing fly went past with a hum of wings; but for that the whole world was still; everything was radiating life, and only the yew-tree in the churchyard beneath her laid a dark spot on the uninterrupted flow of light. A man on horseback was turning away from her uncle’s door. He must have come up from the road by a footpath, for she had not seen him arrive. Her heart jumped, for it was Harry—Harry riding away, having evidently been told that Mr. Lewis was out. He passed by the stile at the foot of the field, and suddenly looking up, saw her white figure on the slope.
He sprang off, calling Howlie (who was by the duck-pond observing him) to take his horse, and in a moment he had vaulted the stile and was coming towards her.
She awaited him smiling, a lovely colour spread over her face.
“May I stay here?” he asked rather shyly, as he came up.
“Oh, certainly,” she replied.
“I so nearly missed you,” he exclaimed, as he threw himself upon the grass beside her. “Your uncle was not in. Fancy, if I had not seen you and had gone back again! Do you know I only got home two days ago, and I have come the very first moment I could get away.”
“Have you been in London, Mr. Fenton?”
“All the time,” said he.
Isoline sighed. “I should so like to go to London. Were you very gay?” she asked.
“Not so very,” said Harry, laughing.
“Did you go to any balls?”
“I went to three.”
“Oh, tell me. And what were the ladies like? Did they wear beautiful dresses and grand diamonds?”
“Yes, I think they did. But I didn’t notice much.”
“But what were they like? Can you not rememberanything?If I went to London I should not forget what I saw.”
“But you are cleverer than I am.”
“Oh, I don’t think you are stupid at all,” she said, looking coyly down at her fingers. “I suppose gentlemen do not notice the same things that we ladies do. I hoped that when I saw you again you would be able to bring me all the new fashions.”
“You knew I should come then? You did not think I should forget?”
She was silent, turning her head away.
“Isoline, are you glad to see me?”
“Perhaps,” she said lightly, swinging her hat which she had picked up from the grass. She was so sure of him that she felt she could afford to dally with the situation.
Harry was young, and his face fell a little. “I don’t believe you care a bit,” he said.
Again she did not answer.
He came nearer. “Isoline, will you marry me?” he asked very earnestly.
A perfect flood of triumph and excitement poured into her heart, but she made no outward sign of it.
“Do you really mean it, Mr. Fenton?” she said softly.
“Of course I mean it, darling!” he exclaimed. “Do you know one thing that took me to London? I went to get something for you, if you will wear it. Look!” He drew a tiny case from his pocket and opened it. Inside was a ring, a diamond heart surrounded by little pearls.
She clasped her hands together.
“How lovely! How lovely!” she exclaimed. “And is that for me?”
“Try it on,” said Harry.
She held out her finger, and he slipped the jewel into its place.
“It fits perfectly!” she cried, enchanted, turning her hand round and round, so that it should flash in the sun.
“Darling!” he exclaimed, throwing his arm round her.
“Oh, please don’t! Some one might be looking. Every one can see you from here.”
“But, Isoline, do you love me?”
“Yes, I do indeed!”
“And you will be my wife? You haven’t said it, you know, dear.”
“I will,” she said, still contemplating her left hand.
“Look at me, dear, tell me you mean what you say. Are you happy, Isoline? I am.”
She glanced up at him with her grey eyes full of sunshine.
“I am very happy,” she murmured.
Then her look swam away into the far landscape and she sat rapt, thinking of what was to come. The world she wanted was opening in front of her; the man who held the key of it had put it into her hand She wondered whether there might be lions on the threshold, and, if so, how loudly they would roar. She thought that she would not mind the roaring very much, if she could only slip by them successfully.
The future was whispering to Harry too.
“I wonder what your uncle will say,” he remarked at last. “I meant to have spoken to him when I arrived, but he had gone out, and so I came up here to you. He can’t refuse me, can he, Isoline?”
“Oh dear, no,” she laughed, wondering at her lover’s simplicity. “How could he? Besides, I shall do as I like.”
“You will never give me up, whatever may happen? Dear, dear Isoline, you couldn’t do such a thing, could you?”
“What will Mr. Fenton and Lady Harriet say?”
“I shall go and tell them what to say,” said Harry valiantly.
“I do not think that your mother will be glad,” said she, smiling faintly.
She hardly knew whether this idea was agreeable to her or not. There was a lurking antipathy in her to Lady Harriet, though she had received nothing but civility at her hands; the strangely-different point of view in small things which Harry’s mother represented had put her out. It had been uncomfortable, and she had not forgotten it. In her mind the only recognized difference between well-regulated people lay in their social positions. She rather resented the idea of a titled mother-in-law whose simple behaviour suggested an unconsciousness of her advantage.
Her imagination flew on to her wedding. It should not take place at Crishowell, if she could help it. She thought of Hereford Cathedral, and the string of carriages and family chariots waiting outside the close for the company before whom she would be playing the leading part. She pictured herself in white satin and lace being conducted up the aisle, and standing with the eldest son of a county magnate before the Bishop—for no doubt Mr. Fenton would wish the Bishop to marry his son; and finally, being led out by her husband to a carriage with grey horses. She would have the wedding-favours an exact facsimile of some she had once seen, bouquets of orange-blossom which had unexpectedly put forth silver leaves, and which reposed on white satin bows with silver fringe. She was quite certain Lady Harriet had never looked so well as she would on that supreme occasion. There was only one dark blot in all her eminently satisfactory day-dream, and that was the fact that Llewellyn would probably be best man. He was neither creditable nor conciliatory.
She awoke from her reverie to find Harry’s eyes fixed upon her with such passionate love and admiration that she was rather startled. So far she had considered him more as an adjunct than as any one possessing a future of his own, and fora single moment the importance of what she had done struck her.
“I wonder how I shall like you,” she remarked suddenly, and without a touch of the flippancy such words might suggest. It was probably the one original thing she had said in her life.
Harry looked as if he had been slapped.
“Isoline! What do you mean?” he cried. “You do not want to draw back?”
“Oh no,” said the girl quickly, “I only wondered if we should ever quarrel.”
“Never,” he replied fervently; “I could never be angry with you, I am sure.”
So they sat and looked down upon the Vicarage till a black figure crossed the churchyard.
“There is my uncle,” said Isoline, taking up her hat. “We ought to go down and tell him.”
“Oh, not yet,” pleaded Harry, “stay a little, dear; I shall always love this place now.”
He looked up into the branches.
“Is not the cherry-blossom pretty? Before you came, I was thinking how nice it would be to have a ball-dress trimmed with it. Do you think it would suit me?”
“You’ll look lovely.”
“And you will not forget my dresses as you forget the London fashions?” She raised her eyes archly to his.
He seized her hand and kissed it, and she made no resistance, for the grass was high and the action could not be seen.
It was long before he forgot the feel of the cool greenness, the touch of soft fingers as he pressed them against his lips, and the dancing of sunlight through the leaves overhead. Poor Harry, he was happy; the heavens had stooped down to earth, and he had no misgivings. Such difficulties as he foresaw were those that would melt away before the fire of his constancy. How was it conceivable that any opposition could stand againstIsoline’s beauty and sweetness? He thought of Llewellyn’s counsel and the day on which they had so nearly quarrelled by the garden door; it was strange that he—so much cleverer than himself—had taken such an extraordinary view of her character. The recollection made him quite impatient, though he told himself in his generous heart that there was no one like his brother, and that, come what might, his marriage should never in any way shadow their friendship.
Time, he was certain, and a closer experience of Isoline’s society, would convince him that he had been mistaken, and he knew Llewellyn well enough to be sure that, when such a change should come to pass, his acknowledgment of his error would be complete. It would all come right, and, meanwhile, life was bathed in an untold glory.
Like all young, open natures who love truly, Harry was humble. His own inferiority to the girl at his side was manifest to him as he looked up at her through the grasses. His life had been, if anything, rather more regular than that of the ordinary young man, for the extreme genuineness of his nature had necessitated that some real feeling, however transient, should direct his desires. Nevertheless, temptations that assailed others had not stepped aside in his favour, and it was a miracle to him that this creature, so delicate, so pure, so refined, should be willing to walk out of the fairy radiance of her maiden kingdom to join hands with him. The little demure air that never left her, even when she had seemed most near to him, was a charm. There was always a suggestion about her of not giving too much, and he admired it as he might have admired the delicacy of scent in a white flower.
He loved refinement, though he could not distinguish between the false and the true, being younger in his mind than in his years; and it is the irony of life that a knowledge of valuations comes to many—indeed to most—when it is too late to be useful. He had reverence in him and a high ideal of womanhood; though it was a crude one, it was the best thathis youth and unanalytic nature could frame. The dainty calm and reserve with which Isoline had met his obvious love was as if the white flower grew on a height to be scaled with patience, and bloomed to be touched by one hand alone. He was not the first to mistake coldness for purity.