You are
quite sure of surprising them, and of deeply provoking such scheming,
shallow politicians as have never read Wayland's "Treatise," and who
venture incautiously within hearing of your remarks. You fancy yourself
in advance the victim of a long leader in the next day's paper, and the
thoughtful but quiet cause of a great change in the political programme
of the State. But crowning and eclipsing all the triumph, are those dark
eyes beaming on you from some corner of the church their floods of
unconscious praise and tenderness.
Your father and Nelly are there to greet you. He has spoken a few calm,
quiet words of encouragement, that make you feel--very wrongfully--that
he is a cold man, with no earnestness of feeling. As for Nelly, she
clasps your arm with a fondness, and with a pride, that tell at every
step her praises and her love.
But even this, true and healthful as it is, fades before a single word
of commendation from the new arbitress of your feeling. You have seen
Miss Dalton! You have met her on that last evening of your cloistered
life in all the elegance of ball-costume; your eye has feasted on her
elegant figure, and upon her eye sparkling with the consciousness of
beauty.
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