Oh, Heaven! could it be possible that he loved me at last?
Long, long, we sat there in the moonlight, his arms around me, my hand
clasped in his. Poor hand! even by that faint radiance how dark and
thin it looked beside his, so white and rounded! How gloriously
beautiful was he! what a poor, pale shadow I! And yet he loved me! He
did not talk much of it; he spoke more of the future,--_our_ future. It
all lay before him, a bright, enchanted land, wherein we two should
walk together. We had not quite reached it, but we surely should, and
that ere long.
The steps toward it were prosaic enough, save as his imagination
brightened them. An early friend of his dead father, a distinguished
lawyer, wishing to further William's advancement in life, gave him the
opportunity of studying his profession with him,--offering him, at the
same time, a home in his own family. From these slender materials
William's fancy built air-castles the most magnificent. He would study
assiduously; with such a prize in view, he fondly said, his patience
would never weary. He felt within himself the consciousness of talent;
and talent and industry _must_ succeed. A bright career was before
him,--fame, fortune; and all were to be laid at my feet; all would be
valueless, if not shared with me.
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