gate just in time to see them enter the carriage and drive off. I gazed to
the last, but did not stir.

"Good boy," he said, "knowing still. If you had bowed, or showed the least
sign of recognition, you would have broken the spell."

But I hardly heard what he said, and stood gazing stupidly after the
carriage as it disappeared. I did not know then what had happened to me. I
know now, alas! too well.




CHAPTER VII.

FIRST LOVE.


Truly I said, I did not know what had happened to me. I did not attempt to
analyse the intense, overpowering instinct which from that moment made the
lovely vision I had seen the lodestar of all my thoughts. Even now, I can
see nothing in those feelings of mine but simple admiration--idolatry, if
you will--of physical beauty. Doubtless there was more--doubtless--I had
seen pretty faces before, and knew that they were pretty, but they had
passed from my retina, like the prints of beauties which I saw in the
shop windows, without exciting a thought--even a conscious emotion of
complacency. But this face did not pass away. Day and night I saw it, just
as I had seen it in the gallery. The same playful smile--the same glance
alternately turned to me, and the glowing picture above her head--and that
was all I saw or felt. No child ever nestled upon its mother's shoulder