She loved to hear others talk of him, and yet
scarcely dared speak of him herself. She recalled her emotion
at unexpectedly seeing his portrait when with her aunt, and her
mortification when her mother deprived her of the poem which she
sighed to read. Day after day something seemed to have occurred to fix
her brooding thoughts with fonder earnestness on his image. At length
they met. Her emotion when she first recognised him at Ranelagh and
felt him approaching her, was one of those tumults of the heart that
form almost a crisis in our sensations. With what difficulty had
she maintained herself! Doubtful whether he would even formally
acknowledge her presence, her vision as if by fascination had
nevertheless met his, and grew dizzy as he passed. In the interval
that had elapsed between his first passing and then joining her, what
a chaos was her mind! What a wild blending of all the scenes and
incidents of her life! What random answers had she made to those with
whom she had been before conversing with ease and animation! And then,
when she unexpectedly found Cadurcis at her side, and listened to the
sound of that familiar voice, familiar and yet changed, expressing
so much tenderness in its tones, and in its words such deference and
delicate respect, existence felt to her that moment affluent with a
blissful excitement of which she had never dreamed!
Her life was a reverie until they met again, in which she only mused
over his fame, and the strange relations of their careers.
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