And Mimsey is just a child angel! Monsieur le Major is infallible.
"Elle a toutes les intelligences de la tete et du coeur! Vous verrez un
jour, quand ca ira mieux; vous verrez!"
That day has long come and gone; it is easy to see all that now--to have
the eyes of Monsieur le Major.
Ah, poor little Mimsey, with her cropped head and her pale face, and
long, thin arms and legs, and grave, kind, luminous eyes, that have not
yet learned to smile. What she is to _me!!!!_
And Madame Seraskier, in all the youthful bloom and splendor of her
sacred beauty! A chosen lily among women--the mother of Mary!
She sits on the old bench by the willow, close to her daughter's gloves.
Sometimes (a trivial and almost comic detail!) she actually seems to sit
_upon_ them, to my momentary distress; but when she goes away, there
they are still, not flattened a bit--the precious mould of those
beautiful, generous hands to which I owe everything here and hereafter.
* * * * *
I have not been again to my old home. I dread the sight of the avenue. I
cannot face "Parva sed Apta."
But I have seen Mary again--seven times.
And every time she comes she brings a book with her, gilt-edged and
bound in green morocco like the Byron we read when we were children, or
in red morocco like the _Elegant Extracts_ out of which we used to
translate Gray's "Elegy," and the "Battle of Hohenlinden," and
Cunningham's "Pastorals" into French.
Pages:
361
362
363
364
365
366
367
368
369
370
371
372
373
374
375
376
377
378
379
380
381
382
383
384
385