His voice had a sweet persuasive tone, that was fitted to _win_
souls, yet it could ring like a clarion, when the grandeur of his
themes fired his soul. With the warmest hopes and the deepest
interest, they, who knew the difficulties and trials attending the
profession he had chosen, looked on this young man.
Duncan and Rosalie had long known the nature of the tie which bound
them together--members of one family--and they never called
themselves brother and sister, after the youth came home a graduate
from college. For, from the time when absence empowered him to look
as a stranger would look on Rosalie, from that time he saw her
elegant and accomplished, and bewitching, as she was, and other than
fraternal affection was in his heart for her.
And Rosalie, too, loved him, just as Duncan, had he spoken his
passion, would have prayed her to love him. She had long ago made
him the standard of all manly excellence; and when he came back,
after three years of absence, she was not inclined to revoke her
early decision; therefore was she prepared to read the language of
Duncan's eyes, and she consecrated her heart to him.
During the years which followed his return from college, till he was
prepared for ordination, as a priest, he did not once _speak_ to her
of his love, which was growing all the while stronger and deeper, as
the river course that, flowing to the ocean, receives every day
fresh impetus and force from the many tiny springs that commingle
with it.
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