Drayton had brought a cushion with him, which he arranged in Mary's
seat; and when they had established themselves, he took a volume of
Emerson's poems from his pocket and laid it on the rock beside him.
"Are you comfortable?" he asked.
"Yes; I wish it would be always like this--the weather, and the sun,
and the time--so that we might stay here forever."
"Forever is the least useful word in human language," observed Drayton.
"In the perspective of time, a few hours, or days, or years, seem alike
inconsiderable."
"But it is not the same to our hearts, which live forever," she
returned.
"The life of the heart is love," said Drayton.
"And that lasts forever," said Mary Leithe.
"True love lasts, but the object changes," was his reply.
"It seems to change sometimes," said she.
"But I think it is only our perception that is misled. We think we have
found what we love; but afterward, perhaps, we find it was not in the
person we supposed, but in some other. Then we love it in him; not
because our heart has changed, but just because it has not.
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