But, meanwhile, they went very pleasantly together down the winding road under the trees to the river. Both of them, in their different ways, had that enthusiasm for the beauty of their home which is common to well-educated young English people, not fine enough to be _blasés_. Mary,--to whom it was a delight at any time to approach the beautiful river near which she had been born, by this winding woodland road, shaded by those great trees under which her mother and her mother’s mother had watched it gliding past,--was this day wrapt in a tender content which gave additional beauty to everything around. There was splendour in the grass and glory in the flower wherever she set her foot on that day of days; and when the humblest things were thus enhanced, what was it to float forth on the blessed river, all encompassed by summer light, and the sweetest sounds and sights of nature! Even to Ben, pre-occupied as he was, there was a pleasure in her gentle company, in the familiar home-look of everything, that penetrated his heart in spite of himself. The sense of life had risen strongly in him after his voluntary banishment. The unusual exercise, the soft gliding of the water round the boat, the glimmer and murmur of the stream, and Mary’s pleasant face,--not beautiful, like the other face he was thinking of,--her soft talk and tremulous, gentle laughter, her happiness and ingenuous confidence, all soothed and consoled him. It would have been rapture with that other; now, it was not rapture, but a certain soft content. She was a good girl, so kind to his mother, like a sister to them all,--a dear, little, sweet-voiced, bright-faced creature. Ben would have defended her against all the world; he would have pitched into the river, without a moment’s hesitation, any man who harmed her so much as by a thought;--he looked at her with a certain affectionate observation and loving-kindness,--poor Mary! and yet with his heart full of that other,--possessed by the enchantress all the time.
‘You are looking a little pale,’ he said, with that frank, affectionate interest in her; ‘but you must not let my mother keep you too much with her. She does not mean to be selfish, poor dear. You must run out and see your friends, Mary, and get your roses back.’