And meanwhile, with one great bond of sympathy between them, the old lady and the little girl grew faster friends than ever.
But her devotion to Alexander—it grew with her growth and strengthened with her strength. It was her one faith, hope, love—her inspiration, her religion, her soul; it was a part of herself—no, her very self—this all-absorbing, all-concentrating, all-devoting love to him.
His bosom was her home, though he might never let her into it; what the nest is to the bird his bosom was to her—the bourne of all her thoughts, the safe and happy resting-place of her heart, though as yet she was an exile from it.
The sphere of study was around her; it did not govern her, but served her, for all that she could get from it was drawn in to help the one great moving power of her being. She loved learning so much for his sake, that she did not know whether she loved it for its own. Her expanding intellect seemed only her enlarging love. Her advancement in knowledge seemed only to be progress towards him.
She seemed to herself to belong to him—to have been made for him, made of him, almost by him. She was as the rib taken from her Adam’s side, conscious of her dislocation, and longing to be put back again, and made one with the life of her life. If Alexander had died at this time, I think that Drusilla would have ceased to live.
One other such case as hers I have seen in common life, and that must be nameless, and one I have met in history, the love of the child-queen, Isabella, for her grown-up consort, Richard II. And that there are many other instances of such devotion, I have no doubt.
Drusilla remained at the “Irving Institute” for nearly three years. With her love of knowledge and desire for improvement, her quick perception and retentive memory, her progress in education was both easy and rapid.
As yet she had not seen enough of the world to know herself by comparison with others, so there were some things in her school life that gently moved her wonder; first, in the study hours, to see that the pursuits which were pastime and delight to her, were labor and vexation to most of her classmates; and second, at the school parties, to which the younger brothers of the pupils were invited, to see girls of her own age actually engaged in flirtations with boys who were no older than themselves, and who seemed to her, to be children.
With the great religion, idolatry—call the passion what you will—that inspired her soul, she could not understand such silliness in her companions, and therefore, pretty and intelligent as she was, her reserve made her somewhat unpopular.
She wrote to Mr. Alexander every week, because he had requested her to do so and she had promised, and also because writing to him was the greatest pleasure she had in this world except receiving his letters.