All that was best in Graham sought Paulina; whatever in him was noble,
awoke, and grew in her presence. With his past admiration of Miss
Fanshawe, I suppose his intellect had little to do, but his whole
intellect, and his highest tastes, came in question now. These, like
all his faculties, were active, eager for nutriment, and alive to
gratification when it came.
I cannot say that Paulina designedly led him to talk of books, or
formally proposed to herself for a moment the task of winning him to
reflection, or planned the improvement of his mind, or so much as
fancied his mind could in any one respect be improved. She thought him
very perfect; it was Graham himself, who, at first by the merest
chance, mentioned some book he had been reading, and when in her
response sounded a welcome harmony of sympathies, something, pleasant
to his soul, he talked on, more and better perhaps than he had ever
talked before on such subjects. She listened with delight, and
answered with animation. In each successive answer, Graham heard a
music waxing finer and finer to his sense; in each he found a
suggestive, persuasive, magic accent that opened a, scarce-known
treasure-house within, showed him unsuspected power in his own mind,
and what was better, latent goodness in his heart. Each liked the way
in which the other talked; the voice, the diction, the expression
pleased; each keenly relished the flavour of the other's wit; they met
each other's meaning with strange quickness, their thoughts often
matched like carefully-chosen pearls. Graham had wealth of mirth by
nature; Paulina possessed no such inherent flow of animal spirits--
unstimulated, she inclined to be thoughtful and pensive--but now she
seemed merry as a lark; in her lover's genial presence, she glanced
like some soft glad light. How beautiful she grew in her happiness, I
can hardly express, but I wondered to see her. As to that gentle ice
of hers--that reserve on which she had depended; where was it now? Ah!
Graham would not long bear it; he brought with him a generous
influence that soon thawed the timid, self-imposed restriction.
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