Page:Coo-ee - tales of Australian life by Australian ladies.djvu/44

40 I cannot imagine anything that could diminish her hold upon you. Her outward appearance charmed the eye, as her beauties seemed coyly to unfold themselves as if to you in particular; and her inner nature was one that compelled you to study it, while it could safely bear the closest investigation. You were puzzled, you were repelled at times by a crust of worldliness, by an assumed heartlessness, but never did you find an ignoble thought, a mean motive hidden there; rather was it a lurking enthusiasm, some shy, sweet goodness that lay concealed in those carefully guarded recesses; and she was so pure-minded that the basest man could not have dared to look at, or think of her, with a polluting thought.

Naturally it was not on this visit, or on many succeeding ones, that I formed my estimate of her. I am only trying to put into words—and what feeble, unsatisfactory ones I only can tell—the impression she produced on me during the short time I had the privilege—and the wretchedness—of knowing her. It would be useless for me to deny the feelings with which she inspired me. It was some time before I recognised them myself. I never willingly betrayed them to her, for she was not the woman I took her to be if I could have dared so to do. She may have guessed them, for I was too young to be so master of myself as never to show what I felt. But whether she did, whether in the remotest degree she shared them,—had, as it were, some tender pity for me,—I never knew; she had so strong a will, such an