Beverley's advent could not fail to mean a great deal in the life
of a girl like Alice; a new era, as it were, would naturally begin
for her the moment that his personal influence touched her
imagination; but it is well not to measure her too strictly by the
standard of our present taste and the specialized forms of our
social and moral code. She was a true child of the wilderness, a
girl who grew, as the wild prairie rose grew, not on account of
innumerable exigencies, accidents and hardships, but in spite of
them. She had blushed unseen, and had wasted divine sweets upon a
more than desert air. But when Beverley came near her, at first
carelessly droning his masculine monotonies, as the wandering bee
to the lonely and lovely rose, and presently striking her soul as
with the wings of Love, there fell a change into her heart of
hearts, and lo! her haunting and elusive dreams began to condense
and take on forms that startled her with their wonderful splendor
and beauty. These she saw all the time, sleeping or waking; they
made bright summer of the frozen stream and snapping gale, the
snowdrifts and the sleet. In her brave young heart, swelled the
ineffable song--the music never yet caught by syrinx or flute or
violin, the words no tongue can speak.
Ah, here may be the secret of that vigorous, brave, sweet life of
our pioneer maids, wives, and mothers.
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