He watched her that evening, fearing to broach a subject so delicate,

but pondering long and deeply, till at last she rallied him on his

unusual seriousness, and he told her what he had heard.

"Yes," she said, in reply; "Harry loved me, or thought he did; though he

was like the others--he did not understand me any better than they. But

he had always been just like a brother to me, and I could never have

loved him in any other way, and I told him so. Papa said I would learn

in time, and I think perhaps he would have insisted upon it if Harry had

lived. I was sorry I couldn't care for him as he wished; he thought I

would after a while, but I never could, for I think that kind of love is

far different from all others; don't you, Mr. Darrell?"

And Darrell, looking from the mountain-side where they were standing out

into the deep blue spaces where the stars, one by one, were gliding into

sight, answered, reverently,-"As far above all others 'as the heaven is high above the earth.'"

To him at that instant love--the love that should exist between two who,

out of earth's millions, have chosen each the other--seemed something as

yet remote; a sacred temple whose golden dome, like some mystic shrine,

gleamed from afar, but into which he might some day enter; unaware that

he already stood within its outer court.




readonlinefreebook.com Copyright 2016 - 2024