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some distant chamber or silent nook; nor did she enter into his pastimes
with the same zest as she was wont, but would sit and watch him with sadly
tender smiles, and eyes bright with tears, yet without a word of complaint.
She approached us timidly, avoided our caresses, nor shook off her
embarrassment till some serious discussion or lofty theme called her for
awhile out of herself. Her beauty grew as a rose, which, opening to the
summer wind, discloses leaf after leaf till the sense aches with its excess
of loveliness. A slight and variable colour tinged her cheeks, and her
motions seemed attuned by some hidden harmony of surpassing sweetness. We
redoubled our tenderness and earnest attentions. She received them with
grateful smiles, that fled swift as sunny beam from a glittering wave on an
April day.
Our only acknowledged point of sympathy with her, appeared to be Evelyn.
This dear little fellow was a comforter and delight to us beyond all words.
His buoyant spirit, and his innocent ignorance of our vast calamity, were
balm to us, whose thoughts and feelings were over-wrought and spun out in
the immensity of speculative sorrow. To cherish, to caress, to amuse him
was the common task of all. Clara, who felt towards him in some degree like
a young mother, gratefully acknowledged our kindness towards him. To me, O!
to me, who saw the clear brows and soft eyes of the beloved of my heart, my
lost and ever dear Idris, re-born in his gentle face, to me he was dear
even to pain; if I pressed him to my heart, methought I clasped a real and
living part of her, who had lain there through long years of youthful
happiness.
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