Of course all this ought to be taught, and is taught to all
respectably educated young persons in more regular and didactic
fashion. But to poor little unschooled Paolina it was taught not
less authoritatively by the greatness and the purity of her own
love.
CHAPTER VIII
A Change in the Situation
"Neither of us can any more doubt the love of the other, Ludovico
mio!" Paolina had said in reply, to his pleading, "but--
"But what, tesoro mio? What `but' can come between us, if there is
no such doubt to come between us?" urged Ludovico, gently drawing
her towards him by the hand he still held locked in his own.
Again Paolina paused some minutes before replying, less apparently
from hesitation to speak what was in her mind, than because she was
applying her whole mind to the better understanding of her own
meaning.
"It is not, that I doubt whether you love me, Ludovico mio!" she
said at length, but still without turning towards him; "I know you
love me truly and well. But I sometimes think, that you do not love
me in the same way that I love you. I never knew before that there
could be different ways of loving. But now it seems to me,--and I
have thought so much, oh, so much of it,--that somehow you look less
to the whole, of everything,--how can I say what I mean?--less to
all our lives, and all our selves, in your love, than I do.
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