For, after all, we derive as much happiness from
human beings as from Nature, and it was a tie of placid affection that
bound her to the McLeans, not of sympathetic union, and her husband was
careful never to oppress her with too much of his society. Whether this
woman, who had lived a life of such wordless emotion, who had never
bestowed a confidence, suddenly blossomed like a rose and took the
little new-comer into the gold-dust and fragrance of her heart, or
whether there was always between them the thin impalpable division that
estranged the past from the present, there was nothing to tell; it
seemed, nevertheless, as if they could have no closer bond, had they
read each other's thoughts from birth.
That this assumption of Marguerite could not continue exclusive Mr.
Raleigh found, when now and then joined in his walks by an airy figure
flitting forward at his side: now and then; since Mrs. Laudersdale,
without knowing how to prevent, had manifested an uneasiness at every
such rencontre;--and that it could not endure forever, another
gentleman, without so much reason, congratulated himself,--Mr. Frederic
Heath, the confidential clerk of Day, Knight, and Company,--a rather
supercilious specimen, quite faultlessly got up, who had accompanied her
from New York at her father's request, and who already betrayed every
symptom of the suitor.
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