But
when it appeared that she was one of the spring-flowers of the human
family, so soon withdrawing thither whence they come, he found that
she began to pull at his heart, not merely with the attraction
betwixt childhood and age, in which there is more than the poets
have yet sung, but with the dearness which the growing shadow of
death gives to all upon whom it gathers. The eyes of the child
seemed to nestle into his bosom. Every morning he paid her a visit,
and every morning it was clear that little Molly's big heart had
been waiting for him. The young as well as the old recognize that
they belong to each other, despite the unwelcome intervention of
wrinkles and baldness and toothlessness. Molly's eyes brightened
when she heard his steps at the door, and ere he had come within her
sight, where she lay half-dressed on her mother's bed, tented in its
tall carved posts and curtains of embroidered silk, the figures on
which gave her so much trouble all the half-delirious night long,
her arms would be stretched out to him, and the words would be
trembling on her lips, 'Prithee, tell me a tale, sir.
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