And If They Catch A Glimpse Of Your Ungloved
Fingers, Then Again Will They Make The Air Ring With Their Sweet
Screams Of Wonder And Amazement, As They Compare The Fairness Of
Your Hand With Their Warmer Tints, And Even With The Hues Of Your
Own Sunburnt Face.
Instantly the ringleader of the gentle rioters
imagines a new sin; with tremulous boldness she touches, then
grasps your hand, and smoothes it gently betwixt her own, and pries
curiously into its make and colour, as though it were silk of
Damascus, or shawl of Cashmere.
And when they see you even then
still sage and gentle, the joyous girls will suddenly and
screamingly, and all at once, explain to each other that you are
surely quite harmless and innocent, a lion that makes no spring, a
bear that never hugs, and upon this faith, one after the other,
they will take your passive hand, and strive to explain it, and
make it a theme and a controversy. But the one, the fairest and
the sweetest of all, is yet the most timid; she shrinks from the
daring deeds of her play-mates, and seeks shelter behind their
sleeves, and strives to screen her glowing consciousness from the
eyes that look upon her. But her laughing sisters will have none
of this cowardice; they vow that the fair one SHALL be their
'complice, SHALL share their dangers, SHALL touch the hand of the
stranger; they seize her small wrist, and drag her forward by
force, and at last, whilst yet she strives to turn away, and to
cover up her whole soul under the folds of downcast eyelids, they
vanquish her utmost strength, they vanquish your utmost modesty,
and marry her hand to yours.
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