“I wish I could convince you.”
“You do, you do, my child. But, Rosalie, how is this? You must have reflected very much, for one of your tender years.”
“I am not so young; I am seventeen.”
“A venerable age, indeed. But, Rosalie, how is it that you have thought so much beyond girls of your age?”
“Have I done so?”
“Why, assuredly—do you not know that you have? Now tell me how it is.”
“Well, if it is so as you say—for I do not know and cannot judge of young people, having never had any young companions—I suppose it is because I have been always sickly, and have always led an isolated, meditative life; hearing in my secluded retreat only the loudest thunders of the distant great world of society, I have naturally thought most about its great successes, and how they were accomplished. I have watched from afar the career of living great men, and have secretly made unto myself idols like them. I have read with deep interest the lives of distinguished statesmen and heroes, particularly those who have struggled up from poverty and obscurity; that is the reason.”
“Yet that is very unusual in so young and beautiful a girl. I cannot yet comprehend it—I can scarcely believe in it.”
“The pleasures of childhood and girlhood were not for me—there was nothing left but books, and much thought over needlework, in solitary hours. Please do not give me undue credit; it is more mortifying than blame. I must tell you how it was I thought so much of your life. Nearly two years ago, after you made such a vast sacrifice to principle—giving up wealth, station, popularity, family, friends, love, esteem, all for your ideas of duty—hero-worshipper that I was, I recognized in you the elements of which heroes are made, and”——
She blushed, and suddenly stopped, conscious of the indelicacy of praising him to his face.