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- capable of things which would be glorious in angels. So look away from
me, dear Pierre, till thou hast taught thine eyes more wonted glances."
"They are vile falsifying telegraphs of me, then, sweet Isabel. What my
look was I can not tell, but my heart was only dark with ill-restrained
upbraidings against heaven that could unrelentingly see such innocence
as thine so suffer. Go on with thy too-touching tale."
"Quietly I sat there sewing, not brave enough to look up at all, and
thanking my good star, that had led me to so concealed a nook behind the
rest: quietly I sat there, sewing on a flannel shirt, and with each
stitch praying God, that whatever heart it might be folded over, the
flannel might hold it truly warm; and keep out the wide-world-coldness
which I felt myself; and which no flannel, or thickest fur, or any fire
then could keep off from me; quietly I sat there sewing, when I heard
the announcing words--oh, how deep and ineffaceably engraved they
are!--'Ah, dames, dames, Madame Glendinning,--Master Pierre
Glendinning.' Instantly, my sharp needle went through my side and
stitched my heart; the flannel dropt from my hand; thou heard'st my
shriek. But the good people bore me still nearer to the casement close
at hand, and threw it open wide; and God's own breath breathed on me;
and I rallied; and said it was some merest passing fit--'twas quite over
now--I was used to it--they had my heart's best thanks--but would they
now only leave me to myself, it were best for me;--I would go on and
sew. And thus it came and passed away; and again I sat sewing on the
flannel, hoping either that the unanticipated persons would soon depart,
or else that some spirit would catch me away from there; I sat sewing
on--till, Pierre! Pierre!--without looking up--for that I dared not do
at any time that evening--only once--without looking up, or knowing
aught but the flannel on my knee, and the needle in my heart, I
felt,--Pierre, _felt_--a glance of magnetic meaning on me. Long, I,
shrinking, sideways turned to meet it, but could not; till some helping
spirit seized me, and all my soul looked up at thee in my full-fronting
face. It was enough. Fate was in that moment. All the loneliness of my
life, all the choked longings of my soul, now poured over me. I could
not away from them. Then first I felt the complete deplorableness of my
state; that while thou, my brother, had a mother, and troops of aunts
and cousins, and plentiful friends in city and in country--I, I, Isabel,
thy own father's daughter, was thrust out of all hearts' gates, and
shivered in the winter way. But this was but the least. Not poor Bell
can tell thee all the feelings of poor Bell, or what feelings she felt
first. It was all one whirl of old and new bewilderings, mixed and
slanted with a driving madness. But it was most the sweet, inquisitive,
kindly interested aspect of thy face,--so strangely like thy father's,
too--the one only being that I first did love--it was that which most
stirred the distracting storm in me; most charged me with the immense
longings for some one of my blood to know me, and to own me, though but
once, and then away. Oh, my dear brother--Pierre! Pierre!--could'st thou
take out my heart, and look at it in thy hand, then thou would'st find
it all over written, this way and that, and crossed again, and yet
again, with continual lines of longings, that found no end but in
suddenly calling thee. Call him! Call him! He will come!--so cried my
heart to me; so cried the leaves and stars to me, as I that night went
home. But pride rose up--the very pride in my own longings,--and as one
arm pulled, the other held. So I stood still, and called thee not. But
Fate will be Fate, and it was fated. Once having met thy fixed regardful
glance; once having seen the full angelicalness in thee, my whole soul
was undone by thee; my whole pride was cut off at the root, and soon
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