I
remember the cold, crisp air, the rapid motion, and can I ever forget
it--the nearness and touch of Miss Dodan's person, perhaps only a
hurried brushing past me of her arm, the stray touch of her floating
hair, or the accidental stubbing of her foot against my own. It seemed a
short, delicious drive. I fear my heart was almost equally divided
between apprehension for my father's health and the joy of simple
nearness to the woman I loved. At last we reached Christ Church. The
Dodans lived in the suburbs in a pretty villa on a high hill, from whose
top the city lay spread before them in its modest extent with its
neighboring places and Port Lyttelon eight miles away.
I found my father better, but it required my own zeal and affection to
thoroughly restore him, and bring him back to his characteristic
interest and alertness, which made him so original and delightful a
companion. At length, by a week's nursing, during which Miss Dodan and
myself were frequently together, becoming more and more attached to each
other, my father renewed his wonted studies, and strongly desired to
return to the "plateau."
I almost regretted, harsh as the thought may seem, our return. Such
incidents are now a kind of sweet sadness to recall, for as I write
these words, I hear nearer and nearer the summons that must put me also
in the spirit world, while she, in whose heart my own trustingly lived,
has been taken away, I think wisely and prudently, to live with her
father's people in a charming, rustic village of Devonshire.
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