"Not I!" said Priscilla. "I will live and die with these!"

"Well; but let the future go," resumed I. "As for the present moment,

if we could look into the hearts where we wish to be most valued, what

should you expect to see? One's own likeness, in the innermost,

holiest niche? Ah! I don't know! It may not be there at all. It may

be a dusty image, thrust aside into a corner, and by and by to be flung

out of doors, where any foot may trample upon it. If not to-day, then

to-morrow! And so, Priscilla, I do not see much wisdom in being so

very merry in this kind of a world."

It had taken me nearly seven years of worldly life to hive up the

bitter honey which I here offered to Priscilla. And she rejected it!

"I don't believe one word of what you say!" she replied, laughing anew.

"You made me sad, for a minute, by talking about the past; but the past

never comes back again. Do we dream the same dream twice? There is

nothing else that I am afraid of."

So away she ran, and fell down on the green grass, as it was often her

luck to do, but got up again, without any harm.

"Priscilla, Priscilla!" cried Hollingsworth, who was sitting on the

doorstep; "you had better not run any more to-night. You will weary

yourself too much. And do not sit down out of doors, for there is a

heavy dew beginning to fall."

At his first word, she went and sat down under the porch, at

Hollingsworth's feet, entirely contented and happy. What charm was

there in his rude massiveness that so attracted and soothed this

shadow-like girl? It appeared to me, who have always been curious in

such matters, that Priscilla's vague and seemingly causeless flow of

felicitous feeling was that with which love blesses inexperienced

hearts, before they begin to suspect what is going on within them. It

transports them to the seventh heaven; and if you ask what brought them

thither, they neither can tell nor care to learn, but cherish an

ecstatic faith that there they shall abide forever.

Zenobia was in the doorway, not far from Hollingsworth. She gazed at

Priscilla in a very singular way. Indeed, it was a sight worth gazing

at, and a beautiful sight, too, as the fair girl sat at the feet of

that dark, powerful figure. Her air, while perfectly modest, delicate,

and virgin-like, denoted her as swayed by Hollingsworth, attracted to

him, and unconsciously seeking to rest upon his strength. I could not

turn away my own eyes, but hoped that nobody, save Zenobia and myself,

was witnessing this picture. It is before me now, with the evening

twilight a little deepened by the dusk of memory.




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