CHAPTER XVII.
The rose that all are praising
Is not the rose for me;
Too many eyes are gazing
Upon the costly tree.
But there's a rose in yonder glen
That shuns the gaze of other men,
For me its blossom raising—
Oh, that's the rose for me!
HAYNES BAYLEY.
And Mary—her love and trust had indeed stood full proof against the breath of warning and insinuation, which had passed over their strength and beauty as unavailingly as the breeze across the hardy floweret.
There is a beautiful description of one of Bulwer's heroines, which so exactly corresponds with the characteristics of our Mary's nature, that we hope we may be excused from quoting it here in application to her case.
"There was a remarkable trustingness, if I may so speak, in her disposition. Thoughtful and grave as she was by nature, she was yet ever inclined to the more sanguine colourings of life; she never turned to the future with fear. A placid sentiment of hope slept at her heart. She was one, who surrounded herself with a fond and implicit faith to the# guidance of all she loved and the chances of life. It was a sweet indolence of the mind which made one of her most beautiful traits of character. There is something so unselfish in tempers reluctant to despond. You see that such persons are not occupied with their own existence—they are not fretting the calm of the present life with the egotisms of care—of conjecture and calculation: if they learn anxiety, it is for another; but in the heart of that other how entire is their trust."
Thus the constant intercourse which from that day forth was maintained between them, served but to strengthen the infatuation, (if we are justified in applying such a term to such genuine affection) of Mary towards her lover.
Scarcely a day passed on which Trevor did not arrive to stay, or at least to spend some hours at Silverton. They walked—and often—for there was Mrs. de Burgh's beautiful horse now at Mary's disposal—they rode out together, attended only by a groom.