She gave the song such a second birth, indeed, that a tolerable
judge might have taken it, so hearing it for the first time, for what it
was not--a song with some existence of its own, some distinction from a
thousand other wax flowers dipped in sugar-water for the humming-birds
of society. The moment she ended, she rose ashamed, and going to the
window looked out over the darkening sea.
Vavasor had not heard her sing before. He did not even know she cared
for music; for Hester, who did not regard her faculty as an
accomplishment but as a gift, treated it as a treasure to be hidden for
the day of the Lord rather than a flag to be flaunted in a civic
procession--was jealously shy over it, as a thing it would be
profanation to show to any but loving eyes. To utter herself in song to
any but the right persons, except indeed it was for some further and
higher end justifying the sacrifice, appeared to her a kind of
immodesty, a taking of her heart from its case, and holding it out at
arm's length. He was astonished and yet more delighted. He was in the
presence of a power! But all he knew of power was in society-relations.
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