Damaris sat down, pulling her skirts as low as they would come over her
bare legs, and clasping her hands round her knees, bowed, huddled
together to gain, if it might be, some sensation of warmth. For a little
she thought of that only--warmth--her mind otherwise a blank. But soon
the consuming sadness of the place in the waning light penetrated her
imagination, penetrated, indeed, her whole being. Only a few hours ago
she had danced here, in ecstasy born of the sunshine, the colour, the
apparently inexhaustible beauty of things uncreated by, and independent
of, the will and work of man. Contrast that scene, and the radiant
emotion evoked by it, with this? Which was real, the enduring revelation?
Was this truth; the other no more than mirage--an exquisite dissembling
and lovely lie?
Such thoughts are hardly wholesome at eighteen--hardly wholesome perhaps
at any age, if life is to be lived sweetly, with honest profit to one's
own soul and to the souls of others. Yet remembering back, down the dim
avenues of childhood, Damaris knew she did not formulate the question,
entertain the suspicion, for the first time.
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