Taquisara himself had struck her as something new in the way of a man,
of a sort such as she had never seen nor dreamt of, and her mind dwelt
long on the recollection of the interview. In some way which she could
not explain, she vaguely connected him with the book she was now
reading--the Bride of Lammermoor; in other words, he appeared to her in
the light of a romantic character, and the first that had ever come
within the circle of her experience. His recklessness of formalities, of
all the limits supposed to be set upon the conversation of mere
acquaintance, of what she might or might not think of him individually,
so long as she would listen to what he had to say for his friend, seemed
to her to belong to a type of humanity with which she had never come in
contact. He, and he only, as yet had stirred some thought of another
existence than the one which seemed to lie straight before her,--a
broad, plain road, as the wife of Bosio.
Of love, indeed, there was nothing in her heart, for any man. Within her
all was yet dim and still as a sweet summer's night before the dawning.
In her firmament still shone the myriad stars that were her maiden
thoughts, not yet lost in the high twilight, to be forgotten when love's
sun should rise, in peace, or storm, as rise he must. Under her feet,
low, virgin flowers still bloomed in dusk, such as she should find not
again in the rose gardens or the thorn-land that lay before her. In
maidenhood's tender eyes the greater tenderness of woman awaited still
the coming day.
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