She had a scared look too, that might have
moved the heart of Malison even, if he had ever paid the least
attention to the looks of children. For the absence of human
companionship in bestial forms; the loss of green fields, free to her
as to the winds of heaven, and of country sounds and odours; and an
almost constant sense of oppression from the propinquity of one or
another whom she had cause to fear, were speedily working sad effects
upon her. The little colour she had died out of her cheek. Her face
grew thin, and her blue eyes looked wistful and large out of their
sulken cells. Not often were tears to be seen in them now, and yet they
looked well acquainted with tears--like fountains that had been full
yesterday. She never smiled, for there was nothing to make her smile.
But she gained one thing by this desolation: the thought of her dead
father came to her, as it had never come before; and she began to love
him with an intensity she had known nothing of till now. Her mother had
died at her birth, and she had been her father's treasure; but in the
last period of his illness she had seen less of him, and the blank left
by his death had, therefore, come upon her gradually.
Pages:
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72