Hynds House won't feel the same without
you. I thought of all she had taught me by just being her fine,
frank self, and looked at her gratefully. She looked back at me
quizzically, and of a sudden she slipped her arm around my
shoulders.
"Sophy Smith," said she, softly, "I have met many women in my time,
many far more brilliant and beautiful, and what the world calls
gifted, than you. But I have met none with a greater capacity for
unselfish loving. It's easy enough to win love, a harder thing to
keep it, but divinest of all to give it and keep on giving it. And
there's where your great gift lies, Sophy." And she kissed me, with
misty eyes, and such a tender face!
That put such a friendly, warm glow in my heart that I was sorry to
part even with the Englishman's daughter, Athena though she was, and
I mortally afraid of her. As for her father, he was bewailing the
parting with Alicia, whose Irishness was a manna in the wilderness
to him.
"It's like saying good-by to the Fountain of Youth," he lamented.
"You're more than a pretty girl: you're the eternal feminine in
Irish!"
"She's the Eternal Irish in proper English, that's what she is!"
said The Author darkly, and looked so wise that everybody looked
respectful, though nobody knew what he meant.
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