To the Evelyns it was a new
and beautiful allegory on a familiar idea. Janet was divided between
discomfort at allusions reminding her of her secret, and on
criticisms of the description of alchemy. Her mother's heart beat as
if she were hearing an echo of her husband's thoughts about his
Magnum Bonum. Little Armine was thrilled as, in the awe of drawing
near to his first Communion, this golden thread of life was put into
his hand. But it was Jock to whom that discourse came like a beam of
light into a dark place. When upon the dreary vista of dull
abnegation on which he had been dwelling for a month past, came this
vision of the beauty, activity, victory, and glory of true manhood,
as something attainable, his whole soul swelled and expanded with
joyful enthusiasm. The future that he had embraced as lead had
become changed to gold! Thus the whole ensuing service was to him a
continuation of that blessed hopeful dedication of himself and all
his powers. It was as if from being a monk, he had become a Red
Cross Knight of the Hospital. Yet, after his soiled, spoiled,
reckless boyhood, how could that grand manhood be attained?
Later in the afternoon, when the denizens of the hotel had gone their
several ways, some to look and listen at Benediction in the Convent
church, some to climb through the pine-woods to the Alp, some to
saunter and rest among the nearer trees, the clergyman, with his
Greek Testament in his hand, was sitting on a seat under one of the
trees, enjoying the calm of one of his few restful Sundays; when he
heard a movement, and beheld the pale thin lad, who still walked so
lame, who had been so silent at the table d'hote, and whose dark eyes
had looked up with such intensity of interest, that he had more than
once spoken to them.
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