Her action was suited to her utterance.
Unaccustomed to restraint--nay, accustomed only to pour herself
forth to woods, and trees, and waters, she was scarcely conscious
of the presence of any other companion, yet she looked even while
she spoke, in the eyes of Stevens. He gazed on her with glances of
unconcealed admiration. The unsophisticated nature which led her
to express that enthusiasm which a state of conventional existence
prompts us, through fear of ridicule, industriously to conceal,
struck him with the sense of a new pleasure. The novelty alone
had its charm; but there were other sources of delight. The natural
grace and dignity of the enthusiastic girl, adapting to such
words the appropriate action, gave to her beauty, which was now in
its first bloom, all the glow which is derived from intellectual
inspiration. Her whole person spoke. All was vital, spiritual,
expressive, animated; and when the last word lingered on her lips,
Stevens could scarcely repress the impulse which prompted him to
clasp her in his embrace.
"Margaret!" he exclaimed--"Miss Cooper!--you are yourself a poet!"
"No, no!" she murmured, rather than spoke;--"would I were!--a
dreamer only--a self-deluded dreamer.
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