"See how sweet it is now! The warmth I imparted to it has reassured
the little modest, timid blossom, and it breathes out its incomparable
fragrance in gratitude to me."
"Say rather that it has received it from you," he replied, raising the
violet tenderly to his lips, and taking from it the kiss Isabelle had
bestowed--"for this delicate, delicious odour has nothing gross or
earthly about it--it is angelically pure and sweet, like yourself, my
own Isabelle."
"Ah! the naughty flatterer," said she, smiling upon him with all her
heart in her eyes. "I give him a little flower that he may enjoy its
perfume, and straightway he draws from it inspiration for all sorts of
high-flown conceits, and fine compliments. There's no doing anything
with him--to the simplest, most commonplace remark he replies with a
poetical flight of fancy."
However, she could not have been very seriously displeased, for she
took his arm again, and even leaned upon it rather more heavily than the
exigencies of the way actually required; which goes to prove that the
purest virtue is not insensible to pretty compliments, and that modesty
itself knows how to recompense delicate flattery.
Not far from the road they were travelling stood a small group of
thatched cottages--scarcely more than huts--whose inhabitants were all
afield at their work, excepting a poor blind man, attended by a little
ragged boy, who sat on a stone by the wayside, apparently to solicit
alms from those who passed by.
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