I confess all this. The world had told me I was not ill-looking, and I believed what it said. I am mortal in my vanities. Are not you?
There was a guitar in the house. I had learnt in my college days to touch the strings, and its music delighted both Zoe and her mother. I sang to them the songs of my own land—songs of love; and with a throbbing heart watched whether the burning words produced any impression upon her. More than once I have laid aside the instrument with feelings of disappointment. From day to day, strange reflections passed through my mind. Could it be that she was too young to understand the import of the word love? too young to be inspired with a passion? She was but twelve years of age, but then she was the child of a sunny clime; and I had often seen at that age, under the warm sky of Mexico, the wedded bride, the fond mother.
Day after day we were together alone. The botanist was busy with his studies, and the silent mother occupied with the duties of her household.
Love is not blind. It may be to all the world beside; but to its own object it is as watchful as Argus.
I was skilled in the use of the crayon, and I amused my companion by sketches upon scraps of paper and the blank leaves of her music. Many of these were the figures of females, in different attitudes and costumes. In one respect they resembled each other: their faces were alike.
The child, without divining the cause, had noticed this peculiarity in the drawings.
“Why is it?” she asked one day, as we sat together. “These ladies are all in different costumes, of different nations; are they not? and yet there is a resemblance in their faces! They have all the same features; indeed, exactly the same, I think.”
“It is your face, Zoe; I can sketch no other.”
She raised her large eyes, and bent them upon me with an expression of innocent wonder. Was she blushing? No!