The Trial by Charlotte Mary Yonge
page 76 of 695 (10%)
page 76 of 695 (10%)
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made it out.'
'Did--she--know?' said Dr. Spencer, with a long breath. 'I cannot tell,' said Ethel. 'And how or why did he tell you?' (rather hurt.) 'It was when first you came. I am sure no one else knows it. But he told me because he could not help it; he was so sorry for you.' They walked the whole length of the parade, and had turned before Dr. Spencer spoke again; and then he said, 'It is strange! My one vision was of walking on the sea-shore with her; and that just doing so with you should have brought up the whole as fresh as five-and-thirty years ago!' 'I wish I was more like her,' said Ethel. No more was wanting to make him launch into the descriptions, dear to a daughter's heart, of her mother in her sweet serious bloom of young womanhood, giving new embellishments to the character already so closely enshrined in his hearer's heart, the more valuable that the stream of treasured recollection flowed on in partial oblivion of the person to whom it was addressed, or, at least, that she was the child of his rival; for, from the portrait of the quiet bright maiden, he passed to the sufferings that his own reserved nature had undergone from his friend's outspoken enthusiasm. The professor's visible preference for the youth of secure prospects, had not so much discouraged as stung him; and in a moment of irritation at the |
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