"A gentle footstep," said John with a softened look coming into his eyes. "A
quiet presence."
"Beautiful taste in music," said John.
"Oh! dreadful!" said the parson. "What on earth are you thinking about?"
"The love of rugs and cushions," said John, groping desperately.
"The love of a lap," said the parson fluently.
"The love of playing with its victim," said John, thinking of another woman.
"Capital!" cried the parson. "That's the truest thing we've said. We'll not
spoil it by another word;" but he searched John's face covertly to see
whether this talk had beguiled him.
All this satire meant nothing sour, or bitter, or ignoble with the parson.
It was merely the low, far-off play of the northern lights of his mind,
irradiating the long polar night of his bachelorhood. But even on the polar
night the sun rises--a little way; and the time came when he married--as one
might expect to find the flame of a volcano hidden away in a mountain of
Iceland spar.
Toward the end of his illness, John lay one night inside his door, looking
soberly, sorrowfully out into the moonlight. A chair sat outside, and the
parson walked quietly up the green hill and took it.
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