A steely-blue ray shot from beneath his eyelashes in her direction, as he turned a leaf. She did not see it. Perfectly still, yet attentive, she had leaned her head against the high back of her husband's chair, and was looking straight before her.
The cold disgust,
Wonderful and most unjust,
found no expression in attitude and feature.
The reader's voice mellowed; the emphasis of suppressed emotion was more artistic and effective.
Seems to me that I should guess
By what a world of bitterness,
By what a gulf of hopeless care,
Our two hearts divided are.
And I praise thee as I go,
Wandering, weary, full of woe
To my own unwilling heart,—
Cheating it to take thy part,
By rehearsing each rare merit
Which thy nature doth inherit;
How thy heart is good and true,
And thy face most fair to view;
How the powers of thy mind
Flatterers in the wisest find,
And the talents to thee given,
Seem as held in trust for Heaven,
Laboring on for noble ends,
Steady to thy boyhood's friends,
Slow to give or take offence,
Full of earnest eloquence.
How, in brief, there dwells in thee
All that's generous and free,
All that may most aptly move
My spirit to an answering love.