s. In spite of his new connections and alienated life, her
old friend had not forgotten her. She extended her hand, with a flash
of surprise and pleasure in her face, which was not a flash but a dawn,
for it grew and brightened into warmer kindliness.

'Pitt Dallas!' she said. 'It is really you!'

The two hands met and clasped and lay in each other, but Pitt had no
words for what went on within him. With the first sight of Esther he
knew that he had met his fate. Here was all that he had left six or
seven years ago, how changed! The little head, so well set on its
shoulders, with its wealth of beautifully ordered hair; those wonderful
grave, soft, sweet, thoughtful eyes; the character of the quiet mouth;
the pure dignity and grace of the whole creature,--all laid a spell
upon the man. He found no words to speak audibly; but in his mind words
heaped on words, and he was crying to himself, 'Oh, my beauty! Oh, my
gazelle! My fair saint! My lily! My Queen!' What right he had to the
personal pronoun does not appear; however, we know that appropriation
is an instinct of humanity for that which it likes. And it may also be
noted, that Pitt never thought of calling Esther a _rose_. Nor would
any one else. That was not her symbol. Roses are sweet, sweeter than
anything, and yielding in fairness to nothing; but--let me be pardoned
for saying it--they are also common. And Esther was rather something
apart, rare. If I liken her to a lily, I do not mean those fair white
lilies which painters throw at the feet of Franciscan monks, and
dedicate also to the Virgin,--Annunciation lilies, so called. They are
common too, and rather specially emblems of purity. What I am thinking
of, and what Pitt was thinking of, is, on the contrary, one of those
unique exotic lilies, which are as much wonders of colour as marvels of
grace; apart, reserved, pure, also lofty, and delicate to the last
degree; queening it over all the rest of the flowers around, not so
much by official pre-eminence of beauty as by the superiority of the
spiritual nature. A difference internal and ineffable, which sets them
of necessity aside of the crowd and above it.

Pitt felt all this in a breath, which I have taken so many words
clumsily to set forth. He, as I said, took no words, and only gave such
expression to his thoughts as he could at the moment by bowing very low
over Esther's hand and kissing it. Something about the action hurt
Esther; she drew her hand away.