--Could it be
that she was afraid of his insight reaching to her heart, and reading
there more than she was yet willing to confess to herself?--But whatever
the cause of the change might be, there was certainly a responsiveness in
her, a readiness to meet every utterance, and take it home, by which the
vanity of the old bachelor would have been flattered to the full, had not
his heart come first, and forestalled the delight.
So absorbed was I in considering these things, that the time passed like
one of my thoughts; and before I knew I found myself on the verge of the
perilous moor over which Harry had ridden in the teeth and heart of the
storm. How smooth yet cruel it looked in its thick covering of snow! There
was heather beneath, within which lay millions of purple bells, ready to
rush out at the call of summer, and ring peals of merry gladness, making
the desolate place not only blossom but rejoice as the rose. And there
were cold wells of brown water beneath that snow, of depth unknown, which
nourished nothing but the green grass that hid the cold glare of their
presence from the eyes of the else warefully affrighted traveller.
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