How pitiful, and yet how beautiful, for in
the tender illumination of her imagined love rough places became
smooth, dark ways bright, and the heights of possible achievement were
faintly flushed with all the delicate tints of dawn--the dawn of a
diviner day than any he had yet looked upon. When he went to sleep it
was to dream of walking in a wilderness of roses. Pale and drooping,
broken and dying, red and roguish, blushing, wanton, wild and warm,
each bore some fantastic resemblance to Rose Macleod, and each was set
about with "little wilful thorns." The hand which he eagerly
outstretched to pluck the loveliest rose of all was pierced and
bleeding. Still he did not despair of reaching it. But as his longing
eyes drew nearer and nearer the stately little beauty turned suddenly
a deep blood-red, and then he saw that the crimson drops falling from
his own wounds had worked this transformation. He hid her in his
bosom, and held her there. But the closer she was pressed the richer
and more fragrant was the breath she exhaled, intoxicating all his
senses, and the farther into his heart went the cruel thorns, until in
mingled pain and rapture he awoke.
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