Miss Dalton--(it seems
sacrilege to call her Laura)--is the same elegant being that entranced
you first.
They urge you to join their party. But there is no need of urging: those
eyes, that figure, the whole presence indeed of Miss Dalton, attract you
with a power which you can neither explain nor resist. One look of grace
enslaves you; and there is a strange pride in the enslavement.
----Is it dream, or is it earnest,--those moonlit walks upon the hills
that skirt the city, when you watch the stars, listening to her voice,
and feel the pressure of that jewelled hand upon your arm?--when you
drain your memory of its whole stock of poetic beauties to lavish upon
her ear? Is it love, or is it madness, when you catch her eye as it
beams more of eloquence than lies in all your moonlight poetry, and feel
an exultant gush of the heart that makes you proud as a man, and yet
timid as a boy, beside her?
Has Dalton, with that calm, placid, _nonchalant_ look of his, any
inkling of the raptures which his elegant sister is exciting? Has the
stout, elderly gentleman, who is so prodigal of his bouquets and
attentions, any idea of the formidable rival that he has found? Has
Laura herself--you dream--any conception of that intensity of admiration
with which you worship?
----Poor Clarence! it is his first look at Life!
The Thousand Isles with their leafy beauties lie around your passing
boat, like the joys that skirt us, and pass us, on our way through life.
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