Two or three canary-birds, excited by
this gush of sound, sang piercingly, and did their utmost to produce
a kindred melody. A bright illumination streamed through, the door
of the front drawing-room; and I had barely stept across the
threshold before Zenobia came forward to meet me, laughing, and with
an extended hand.
"Ah, Mr. Coverdale," said she, still smiling, but, as I thought, with
a good deal of scornful anger underneath, "it has gratified me to see
the interest which you continue to take in my affairs! I have long
recognized you as a sort of transcendental Yankee, with all the
native propensity of your countrymen to investigate matters that come
within their range, but rendered almost poetical, in your case, by
the refined methods which you adopt for its gratification. After all,
it was an unjustifiable stroke, on my part,--was it not?--to let
down the window curtain!"
"I cannot call it a very wise one," returned I, with a secret
bitterness, which, no doubt, Zenobia appreciated. "It is really
impossible to hide anything in this world, to say nothing of the next.
All that we ought to ask, therefore, is, that the witnesses of our
conduct, and the speculators on our motives, should be capable of
taking the highest view which the circumstances of the case may admit.
So much being secured, I, for one, would be most happy in feeling
myself followed everywhere by an indefatigable human sympathy."
"We must trust for intelligent sympathy to our guardian angels, if
any there be," said Zenobia.
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