It was like seeing a picture,
to see Miss Marjorie hovering around the old soldier, and doing a
hundred gracious little things for him. She brought the cigars and
lighted the tapers with her own delicate fingers, in the most
enchanting fashion. As we sat there, she came and went in the
summer twilight, and seemed, with her white dress and pale gold
hair, like some lovely phantom that had sprung into existence
out of the smokewreaths. If she had melted into air, like the
statue of Galatea in the play, I should have been more sorry than
surprised.
It was easy to perceive that the old colonel worshipped her and she
him. I think the relation between an elderly father and a daughter
just blooming into womanhood the most beautiful possible. There is
in it a subtile sentiment that cannot exist in the case of mother
and daughter, or that of son and mother. But this is getting into
deep water.
I sat with the Daws until half past ten, and saw the moon rise on
the sea. The ocean, that had stretched motionless and black against
the horizon, was changed by magic into a broken field of glittering
ice, interspersed with marvellous silvery fjords. In the far
distance the Isle of Shoals loomed up like a group of huge bergs
drifting down on us. The Polar Regions in a June thaw! It was
exceedingly fine. What did we talk about? We talked about the
weather--and you! The weather has been disagreeable for several
days past--and so have you.
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