Oh, how the heart of Lilias trembled as she looked upon him and read the measure of his twofold suffering. An outcast, by deformity, from the common race of man, and trodden down in soul by unmerited contumely or hate. How to the very depths was stirred within her that well of tenderness and pity for the oppressed which gushes in every woman's heart, as she saw in his whole aspect the evidence of a resolute and noble endurance, a patient meekness, untinged by a trace of bitterness! She could have wept over him, for she was one of those unhappily gifted whose soul is like a sensitive plant, and shrinks from the touch of sufferings in others with an exquisite susceptibility. Her natural delicacy, however, taught her that she must hide from him how deeply his infirmity had moved her; he must see in her no evidence of the insulting pity to which alone he seemed accustomed. He had spoken of her shrinking away from him; she drew nearer, and lifting up her eyes, smiled one quiet, gentle smile, as though in token that she had seen nought to surprise or grieve her; that look was balm to him, used only to the half-averted glance of sad repugnance which we are wont to cast on an unsightly object. His voice shook with mingled eagerness and delight as he said:
"Could you indeed take such a deformed wretch as I am by the hand, and stand forth before all the world to acknowledge him your friend?"
"Is it, then, the perishable, mortal body that we love and hold communion with, in those who are mercifully given to be our friends?" she answered; "the frame that shall be a thing of dust and worms so soon? Is it not the indestructible soul to which we give our sympathy, and is not that sympathy immortal as itself? for nothing good and pure that ever was created can have power to perish, though it be only the subtle feeling of a human heart; and so the friendship which is given by one deathless spirit to another is a link between them for their eternity of life, and what has it to do with the outward circumstances of our brief sojourn here?" She paused, and then anxious to dispel the sort of solemnity which had gained on both of them, she said, playfully:
"You have not yet found a good reason why I should not some day be your friend; but I think I shall soon give you little cause to wish for my acquaintance, if I keep you any longer in conversation at this strange hour of the night. I must go; for, indeed, I have lingered too long; but, no doubt, we shall meet again." He did not seek to detain her; he felt that he ought not; but he knew that the smile so sweet and kindly with which she had looked on his unsightly frame would linger like a sunbeam in his memory; and that, yet more, the words of pure, calm wisdom she had uttered would never depart from his sad heart; for the faith she had shown in that one deep truth, that all things good, and beautiful, and worth the having, are created for eternity, and in no sense to be influenced by the accidents (so to speak) of this mere outward life, had suddenly lightened the load of his deformity, which so long had crushed down his entire being, and made him feel that it was his undying soul which stood face to face with hers--no less immortal--and that he, the actual _ego_ the very self, had nought to do with this poor frame, the magnet, as he long had deemed it, of the world's hate and scorn, but, in truth, only the temporary clothing, soon to be put off, and now unworthy of a thought: he had felt this, as regards the life which was to come, when he should be disembarrassed of his mortal body; but he had not understood what a deep joy the truth of this principle could cast even into this present existence. None had taught him, by the sweet teaching of entire sympathy, that all true affection is but planted in the germ here, and has its full fruition only in eternity.