"
"And yet the pleasure of such society as this accident has introduced me
to, would more than repay the pain of a mortified spirit and wounded
body," added the colonel, in a manner of peculiar softness.
"I hope the latter is but trifling," said Sarah, stooping to hide her
blushes under the pretext of biting a thread from the work on her knee.
"Trifling, indeed, compared to the former," returned the colonel, in the
same manner. "Ah! Miss Wharton, it is in such moments that we feel the
full value of friendship and sympathy."
Those who have never tried it cannot easily imagine what a rapid
progress a warm-hearted female can make in love, in the short space of
half an hour, particularly where there is a predisposition to the
distemper. Sarah found the conversation, when it began to touch on
friendship and sympathy, too interesting to venture her voice with a
reply. She, however, turned her eyes on the colonel, and saw him gazing
at her fine face with an admiration that was quite as manifest, and much
more soothing, than any words could make it.
Their tete-a-tete was uninterrupted for an hour; and although nothing
that would be called decided, by an experienced matron, was said by the
gentleman, he uttered a thousand things that delighted his companion,
who retired to her rest with a lighter heart than she had felt since the
arrest of her brother by the Americans.
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