"Where have you been all this afternoon? Have you been out
too?"
"I have been to a singing-class. I generally go twice a-week
when we are in town."
"And do you like it?"
"Yes, I like it very much."
So much they said, and then a silence ensued. Madelon drank
her tea, and Graham sat looking at her. Yes, a change had
certainly come over her--this Madelon, who came and went so
quietly, with a certain harmonious grace in every movement--
this Madelon, who sometimes smiled, but rarely laughed, who
spoke little, and then with an air of vague weariness and
indifference--this was not the little impetuous, warm-hearted
Madelon he remembered, who had clung to him in her childish
sorrow, who had turned from him in her childish anger, who in
her very wilfulness, in her very abandonment to the passion of
the moment, had been so winning and loveable. It was not
merely that she was not gay--gaiety was an idea that he had
never associated with Madelon; it had always been a sad little
face that had come before him when he had thought of her; but
in all her sadness, there had been an animation and spring, an
eagerness and effusion in the child, that seemed wholly
wanting in the girl.
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