“Well, Miss Thusa, the spirit moves you to say that the little child forgave the cruel maiden, and poured balm upon her bleeding heart,” said Louis, with one of his own winning smiles.
“And you think an old woman should forgive likewise!” cried Miss Thusa, looking as benignantly as she could look upon the boy. “You are right, you are right, but her heart don’t bleed yet—not yet.”
Mittie, believing herself unseen, had listened to the tale with an interest that chained her to the spot where she stood. She unconsciously identified herself with the cruel maiden, and in after years she remembered the long, sweeping locks of the knight, and the maiden’s bleeding heart.
PART SECOND.
CHAPTER V.
“Thus with the year
Seasons return, but not to me returns
Day, or the sweet approach of even or morn,
Or signs of vernal bloom, or summer’s rose,
Or flocks, or herds, or human face divine.
But clouds instead, and ever-during dark
Surround me.”
Milton.
“Thou, to whom the world unknown,
With all its shadowy shapes is shown,
Who see’st appalled, th’ unreal scene,
While Fancy lifts the veil between,
Ah, Fear! ah, frantic Fear!
I see, I see thee near!”
Collins.
Six years gliding away, have converted the boy of twelve into the collegian of eighteen years, the girl of nine into the boarding-school Miss of fifteen, and the child of seven into the little maiden of thirteen.