For Fauntleroy, as they sat by their cheerless fireside,--which was
no fireside, in truth, but only a rusty stove,--had often talked to
the little girl about his former wealth, the noble loveliness of his
first wife, and the beautiful child whom she had given him. Instead
of the fairy tales which other parents tell, he told Priscilla this.
And, out of the loneliness of her sad little existence, Priscilla's
love grew, and tended upward, and twined itself perseveringly around
this unseen sister; as a grapevine might strive to clamber out of a
gloomy hollow among the rocks, and embrace a young tree standing in
the sunny warmth above. It was almost like worship, both in its
earnestness and its humility; nor was it the less humble--though the
more earnest--because Priscilla could claim human kindred with the
being whom she, so devoutly loved. As with worship, too, it gave her
soul the refreshment of a purer atmosphere. Save for this singular,
this melancholy, and yet beautiful affection, the child could hardly
have lived; or, had she lived, with a heart shrunken for lack of any
sentiment to fill it, she must have yielded to the barren miseries of
her position, and have grown to womanhood characterless and worthless.
But now, amid all the sombre coarseness of her father's outward
life, and of her own, Priscilla had a higher and imaginative life
within. Some faint gleam thereof was often visible upon her face.
It was as if, in her spiritual visits to her brilliant sister, a
portion of the latter's brightness had permeated our dim Priscilla,
and still lingered, shedding a faint illumination through the
cheerless chamber, after she came back.
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