Every instinct
of her heart was a tender, sensitive tendril of affection, and all these
soft and growing tendrils reaching out in the loneliness of her life had
clung even to William Pressley, as a fine young vine will twine round a
hard cold rock when it can reach nothing softer or warmer or higher. Her
own rich, warm, loving nature had indeed so wreathed his coldness and
hardness that she could not see him as he really was. And now--without
any change in either the vine or the rock--everything was wholly
different. It was as if a tropical storm had suddenly lifted all these
clinging tendrils away from the unresponsive rock and had borne them
heavenward into the eager arms of a living oak.
She knew now the difference between the love that a loving nature gives
to all, and the love which a strong nature gives to only one. Her heart
was beating so under this new, deep knowledge of life, that she feared
lest the man whom she loved might hear. Yet she sat still with her
little hands tightly clasped on her lap, as if to hold herself firm, and
she held herself from looking round, though the silence continued
unbroken.
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