He was simple as a child. No male
vanity, no self-exultation that a woman should love him, and tell
him she loved him, sprang up in his heart. He knew she loved him; he
loved her; all was so natural it could not be otherwise: he never
presumed to imagine her once thinking of him as he had thought of
Ginevra. He was her servant, willing and loving as any angel of God:
that was all--and enough!
"You are not vexed with your pupil--are you?" she resumed, again
looking up in his face, this time with a rosy flush on her own.
"Why?" said Donal, with wonder.
"For speaking so to my master."
"Angry because you love me?"
"No, of course!" she responded, at once satisfied. "You knew that
must be! How could I but love you--better than any one else in the
world! You have given me life! I was dead.--You have been like
another father to me!" she added, with a smile of heavenly
tenderness. "But I could not have spoken to you like this, if I had
not known I was dying."
The word shot a sting as of fire through Donal's heart.
"You are always a child, Mr. Grant," she went on; "death is making a
child of me; it makes us all children: as if we were two little
children together, I tell you I love you.--Don't look like that,"
she continued; "you must not forget what you have been teaching me
all this time--that the will of God, the perfect God, is all in all!
He is not a God far off: to know that is enough to have lived for!
You have taught me that, and I love you with a true heart
fervently.
Pages:
602
603
604
605
606
607
608
609
610
611
612
613
614
615
616
617
618
619
620
621
622
623
624
625
626