"Have you bewitched her?" I exclaimed.
"It is no sorcery of mine," said Zenobia; "but I have seen the girl
do that identical thing once or twice before. Can you imagine what
is the matter with her?"
"No; unless," said I, "she has the gift of hearing those 'airy
tongues that syllable men's names,' which Milton tells about."
From whatever cause, Priscilla's animation seemed entirely to have
deserted her. She seated herself on a rock, and remained there until
Hollingsworth came up; and when he took her hand and led her back to
us, she rather resembled my original image of the wan and spiritless
Priscilla than the flowery May-queen of a few moments ago. These
sudden transformations, only to be accounted for by an extreme
nervous susceptibility, always continued to characterize the girl,
though with diminished frequency as her health progressively grew
more robust.
I was now on my legs again. My fit of illness had been an avenue
between two existences; the low-arched and darksome doorway, through
which I crept out of a life of old conventionalisms, on my hands and
knees, as it were, and gained admittance into the freer region that
lay beyond. In this respect, it was like death. And, as with death,
too, it was good to have gone through it. No otherwise could I have
rid myself of a thousand follies, fripperies, prejudices, habits, and
other such worldly dust as inevitably settles upon the crowd along
the broad highway, giving them all one sordid aspect before noon-time,
however freshly they may have begun their pilgrimage in the dewy
morning.
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