"Not I!" said Priscilla. "I will live and die with these!"
"Well; but let the future go," resumed I. "As for the present moment,
if we could look into the hearts where we wish to be most valued, what
should you expect to see? One's own likeness, in the innermost,
holiest niche? Ah! I don't know! It may not be there at all. It may
be a dusty image, thrust aside into a corner, and by and by to be flung
out of doors, where any foot may trample upon it. If not to-day, then
to-morrow! And so, Priscilla, I do not see much wisdom in being so
very merry in this kind of a world."
It had taken me nearly seven years of worldly life to hive up the
bitter honey which I here offered to Priscilla. And she rejected it!
"I don't believe one word of what you say!" she replied, laughing anew.
"You made me sad, for a minute, by talking about the past; but the past
never comes back again. Do we dream the same dream twice? There is
nothing else that I am afraid of."
So away she ran, and fell down on the green grass, as it was often her
luck to do, but got up again, without any harm.
"Priscilla, Priscilla!" cried Hollingsworth, who was sitting on the
doorstep; "you had better not run any more to-night. You will weary
yourself too much. And do not sit down out of doors, for there is a
heavy dew beginning to fall."
At his first word, she went and sat down under the porch, at
Hollingsworth's feet, entirely contented and happy. What charm was
there in his rude massiveness that so attracted and soothed this
shadow-like girl? It appeared to me, who have always been curious in
such matters, that Priscilla's vague and seemingly causeless flow of
felicitous feeling was that with which love blesses inexperienced
hearts, before they begin to suspect what is going on within them. It
transports them to the seventh heaven; and if you ask what brought them
thither, they neither can tell nor care to learn, but cherish an
ecstatic faith that there they shall abide forever.
Zenobia was in the doorway, not far from Hollingsworth. She gazed at
Priscilla in a very singular way. Indeed, it was a sight worth gazing
at, and a beautiful sight, too, as the fair girl sat at the feet of
that dark, powerful figure. Her air, while perfectly modest, delicate,
and virgin-like, denoted her as swayed by Hollingsworth, attracted to
him, and unconsciously seeking to rest upon his strength. I could not
turn away my own eyes, but hoped that nobody, save Zenobia and myself,
was witnessing this picture. It is before me now, with the evening
twilight a little deepened by the dusk of memory.