'"
Other men had poured poetry into Polly Brewster's ears, and she
had thought them vapid or priggish or affected, according as they
had chosen this or that medium. This man was different. For all
his outer grotesquery, the noble simplicity of the verse matched
some veiled and hitherto but half-expressed quality within him,
and dignified him. Miss Brewster suffered the strange but not
wholly unpleasant sensation of feeling herself dwindle.
"It's very beautiful," she said, with an effort. "Is it Matthew
Arnold?"
"Nearer home. You an American, and don't know your Whittier? That
passage from his 'Agassiz' comes pretty near to being what life
means to me. Have I answered your requirements?"
"Fully and finely."
She rose from the rock upon which she had been seated, and
stretched out both hands to him. He took and held them without
awkwardness or embarrassment. By that alone she could have known
that he was suffering with a pain that submerged consciousness of
self.
"Whether I see you again or not, I'll never forget you," she said
softly. "You HAVE been good to me, Mr. Perkins."
"I like the other name better," he said.
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