They held widely different opinions upon many subjects, but they never crowded them upon each other. Their tastes were dissimilar. For one thing, Elodia had not her brother’s fine religious sense. She seldom entered the sanctuary, though once or twice I saw her there, seated far apart from Severnius and myself.
Stimulated by the hope of some day being able to talk with her, and of convincing her that I was a person not altogether beneath her intelligence, I devoted myself, mind and soul, to the Paleverian language. In six weeks I could read and write it fairly well.
Severnius was untiring in his teaching; and every day strengthened my regard for him as a man. He was an accomplished scholar, and he was as clean-souled as a child,—but not weakly or ignorantly so. He knew evil as well as good; but he renounced the one and accepted the other. He was a man “appointed by Almighty God to stand for a fact.” And I never knew him to weaken his position by defending it. Often we spent hours in the observatory together. It was a glorious thing to me to watch the splendid fleet of asteroids sailing between Jupiter and Mars, and to single out the variously colored moons of Jupiter, and to distinguish with extraordinary clearness a thousand other wonders but dimly seen from the Earth.
Even to study the moons of Mars, the lesser one whirling round the planet with such astonishing velocity, was a world of entertainment to me.
I had begged Severnius not to ask me to see any visitors at all until I could acquit myself creditably in conversation. He agreed, and I saw no one. I believe that in those weeks of quiet study, observation, and close companionship of one noble man, my soul was cleared of much dross. I lived with books, Severnius, and the stars.
At last, I no longer feared to trust myself to speak, even to Elodia. It was a great surprise to her, and evidently a pleasure too.
My first brilliant attempt was at the dinner table. Severnius adroitly drew me into a conversation about our world. Elodia turned her delightful gaze upon me so frankly and approvingly that I felt myself blushing like a boy whom his pretty Sabbath-school teacher praises with her smile when he says his text.
Up to that time, although she had been polite to me,—so entirely polite that I never for a moment felt myself an intruder in her home,—she apparently took no great interest in me. But now she voluntarily addressed me whenever we met, and took pains to draw me out.
Once she glanced at a book I was reading, a rather heavy work, and smiled.