"
The word and the thought dampen your ardor; the sweet watchfulness and
gentle kindness of that parent for an instant make a sad contrast with
the showy qualities you have been naming; and the spirit of that
mother--called up by Nelly's words--seems to hang over you with an
anxious love that subdues all your pride of passion.
But this passes; and now--half believing that Nelly's thoughts have run
over the same ground with yours--you turn special pleader for your
fancy. You argue for the beauty which you just now affirmed; you do your
utmost to win over Nelly to some burst of admiration. Yet there she
sits beside you, thoughtfully and half sadly, playing with the frail
autumn flowers that grow at her side. What can she be thinking? You ask
it by a look.
She smiles,--takes your hand, for she will not let you grow angry,--
"I was thinking, Clarence, whether this Laura Dalton would, after all,
make a good wife,--such an one as you would love always?"
VII.
_A Good Wife._
The thought of Nelly suggests new dreams that are little apt to find
place in the rhapsodies of a youthful lover. The very epithet of a good
wife mates tamely with the romantic fancies of a first passion.
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