I would perhaps have said something, but I observed the porter admitting a person through the gate, whose entrance at that hour in the morning caused me the greatest surprise.
It was a woman; and at the age of sixteen a woman occupies a great deal of the field of vision before the masculine eye. This woman was very young—not more than fifteen, although perfectly mature. She was very beautiful—so beautiful that everybody must have turned to look after her. Her eyes were large, soft and hazel; her hair brown and wavy; her cheeks blended roses and [pg 38]pearls: her mouth small and curved like a bow; her voice and smile perfectly bewitching—all that I took in at a glance: nor did it need the splendid ear-rings and brilliant necklace and scarlet robe she wore, to impress it very deeply on my mind.
She bade me good-morning with the sweetest smile imaginable, and with the affable, self-possessed manner of a woman much older than herself. Startled and abashed, I could do nothing but bow profoundly and hurry into the street where Ethopus had given the basket to the person who was to be my guide.
I made signs to Ethopus, by a kind of pantomime we had acquired, to keep a watchful eye on my sisters. He replied by an affirmative motion of the head and a deep sigh, which was evidently on my own account.
This woman was destined, under the leadings of Providence, to make a greater and more lasting impression on my soul than all others. And this was our first meeting: I a bashful boy; she a strange woman, too gaudily dressed, entering my father’s house at a strange hour. So two ships might pass each other on the Great Sea, merely exchanging signals of good-morning—ships destined long afterward to convoy each other beyond the Pillar of Hercules into the infinite unknown!
This woman was Mary Magdalen.
