Receiving ever fresh and best assurance of
their own consequence in the attention and admiration of men, such
girls are seldom capable of any real attachment, and the marvel is
that so few of them comparatively disgrace themselves after
marriage.
Whether it was the swarthy side of his nature, early ripened under
the hot Indian sun, that found itself irresistibly drawn to the
widening of its humanity in the flaxen fairness of Emmeline, or the
Saxon element in him seeking back to its family--it might indeed
have been both, our nature admitting of such marvellous complexity
in its unity,--he fell in love with her, if not in the noblest yet
in a very genuine, though at the same time very passionate way; and
as she had, to use a Scots proverb, a crop for all corn, his
attentions were acceptable to her. Had she been true-hearted enough
to know anything of that love whose name was for ever suffering
profanation upon her lips, she would, being at least a year and a
half older than he, have been too much of a woman to encourage his
approaches--would have felt he was a boy and must not be allowed to
fancy himself a man. But to be just, he did look to English eyes
older than he was.
Pages:
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179