Leah Mordecai
CHAPTER I. THE giant clock on the wall in the assembly-room of Madam Truxton's fashionable school had marked the hour for dismission. Groups of restless, anxious pupils stood about the apartment, or were gathered at the windows, watching the rain that had been falling in copious showers since morning. All were eager to go, yet none dared brave the storm. Under the stone archway of the entrance to the assembly-hall, a group of four maidens stood chatting, apart from the rest, watching the rain, and impatient for its cessation. "I know my father will either send my brother, or come for me himself," said Helen Le Grande, "so I need not fear the rain." Then, turning to the soft-eyed Jewess who stood by her side, she added,
strongly tied to fetiches. We are fond of clinging to many things, but
love can do without them.
_December 12, 10 o'clock_ (card).
A soft day under the rain. All goes well in our melancholy woods. In
various parts of the neighbourhood there has been a terrible cannonade.
Received your letters of the 4th and 6th. They brought me happiness:
they are the true joy of life. I am glad you visited C----. I hope to
write to you at greater length. It is not that I have less leisure than
usual, but I am going through a time when I am less sensible to the
beauty of things. I long for true wisdom. . . .
_December 12, 7 o'clock._
To-day, in spite of the changing beauty of sun and rain, I did not feel
alive to Nature. Yet never was there such grace and goodness in the
skies.
The landscape, with the little bridge and the man on horseback of which
I have told you, softened under the splendour of the clouds. But I had
lapsed from my former sense of the benediction of God, when suddenly
the beauty, all the beauty, of a certain tree spoke to my inmost heart.
CHAPTER I. THE giant clock on the wall in the assembly-room of Madam Truxton's fashionable school had marked the hour for dismission. Groups of restless, anxious pupils stood about the apartment, or were gathered at the windows, watching the rain that had been falling in copious showers since morning. All were eager to go, yet none dared brave the storm. Under the stone archway of the entrance to the assembly-hall, a group of four maidens stood chatting, apart from the rest, watching the rain, and impatient for its cessation. "I know my father will either send my brother, or come for me himself," said Helen Le Grande, "so I need not fear the rain." Then, turning to the soft-eyed Jewess who stood by her side, she added,