And he cannot know that it is I lying here. Alas! alas!' But as
she thought thus, she felt his hand clasp her, heard the ransom-money
fall, and felt that she was pressed to his face and lips, as he passed
from the shop. He _had_ chosen her; he _had_ known her. She opened her
eyes: her husband's kiss had awakened her. She did not speak, but
looked up thankfully in his eyes, as if he had, in fact, like one of
the old knights, delivered her from the transformation of some evil
magic, by the counter-enchantment of a kiss, and restored her from a
half-withered nosegay to be a woman, a wife, a mother. The dream
comforted her much, for she had often feared that she, the simple,
so-called uneducated girl, could not be enough for the great
schoolmaster. But soon her thoughts flowed into another channel; the
tears rose in her dark eyes, shining clear from beneath a stream that
was not of sorrow; and it was only weakness that kept her from
uttering audible words like these:--'Father in heaven, shall I trust
my husband's love, and doubt thine? Wilt thou meet less richly the
fearing hope of thy child's heart, than he in my dream met the longing
of his wife's? He was perfected in my eyes by the love he bore
me--shall I find thee less complete? Here I lie on thy world, faint,
and crushed, and withered; and my soul often seems as if it had lost
all the odours that should float up in the sweet-smelling savour of
thankfulness and love to thee.
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