CHAPTER 3

Her thus turning her back on me was fortunately not, for my just preoccupations, a snub that

could check the growth of our mutual esteem.

We met after I had brought home little miles.

So monstrous was I then ready to pronounce it that such a child, as had now been revealed

to me, should be under an interdict.

I was a little late on the scene, and I felt as he stood wistfully looking out from me

before the door of the inn, at which the coach had put him down, that I had seen him on

the instant, without and within, in the great glow of freshness, the same positive fragrance

of purity, in which I had, from the first moment, seen his little sister.

He was incredibly beautiful, and Mrs. Grouse had put her finger on it.

Everything but a sort of passion of tenderness for him was swept away by his presence.

What I then and there took him to my heart for was something divine that I have never

found to the same degree in any child.

His indescribable little air of knowing nothing in the world, but love.

It would have been impossible to carry a bad name with a greater sweetness of innocence.

And by the time I had got back to boy with him, I remained merely bewildered.

So far that is, as I was not outraged, by the sense of the horrible letter locked up

in my room in a drawer.

As soon as I could compass a private word with Mrs. Grouse, I declared to her that it was

grotesque.

She promptly understood me.

...