For several days afterwards I considered the matter of my relation to the
Cradlebow in a new and serious light, especially in the light of present
gratitude, with a sense of life-long obligation; but the Cradlebow was
too generous and noble to recognize the obligation, or take advantage of
the gratitude. He loved me, I knew. He had watched for me. He had saved
my life. He should know, I resolved, that if he wished it still I would
wait for him.
And the idea was not foreign to my heart, but it grew, at last, too light
of wing, and disposed to take up permanent abode in the realm of fancy. A
poor, handsome young lover, seeking his fortune at the ends of the earth,
and the future--ah, it did send a little stab to my conscience, to think
that the uncertainty of that lover's future should so have heightened, to
my mind, the romance of the picture. However, meeting him in the lane one
evening, as I was returning from one of my parochial calls--it was just
at dusk, I remember, and we stood under the balm-of-Gilead tree, in front
of Emily's gate--I said very gravely and with none of that embarrassment
which the occasion might seem to have warranted:--
"Luther, although I seem to myself much older than you, we are really, I
suppose, of about the same age.
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