A vision rose before him of a blooming girl with blue ribbons
that matched blue eyes, who came and went about him softly
through the long spring and summer days, arranging his
cushions, fetching his books, and reading to him by the hour
in gentle, unvarying tones. Yes, he understood well enough how
it had all come to pass; but those days had gone by, and the
Maria who had brightened them, was not she gone also? or
rather, had she ever existed except in the eyes that had
invested the kind girl-nurse with every perfection? And now
what remained? Graham groaned as he bowed his head upon his
crossed arms, and suddenly another vision flitted before him--a
pale face, a slender form, a pair of brown eyes that seemed to
grow out of the twilight, and look at him with a child's
affection, a woman's passion--Graham was no boy, to be tossed
about on the tempestuous waves of a first love; he had long
held that there were things in life, to which love and
courtship, marrying and giving in marriage, might be looked
upon as quite subordinate--and yet he felt, at that moment, as
if life itself would be a cheap exchange for one touch of the
small hand that had clung so confidingly to his, years ago,
for one more look into the eyes that had met his, scarcely ten
minutes since.
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