There was the
same glorious sun raining down his golden beams upon the yellow
poplar leaves, the same air, sweet and genial, in him the same
heart, and before him the same face, but sweeter it seemed, and
eyes the same that danced with every sunbeam and lured him on. He
was living again the rapture of his boyhood's first great passion.
At the mine's mouth he paused. Not a feature remained of the cave
that he had discovered five years ago, but sitting there upon his
horse, how readily he reconstructed the scene! Ah, how easy it was!
Every line of that cave, the new fresh earth, the gleaming black
seam, the very stones in the walls, he could replace. Carefully,
deliberately, he recalled the incidents of the evening spent in the
cave: the very words she spoke; how her lips moved as she spoke
them; how her eyes glanced, now straight at him, now from under the
drooping lids; how she smiled, how she wept, how she laughed aloud;
how her face shone with the firelight playing on it, and the soul
light radiating through it. He revelled in the memory of it all.
There was the very spot where Mr. Penny had lain in vocal slumber.
Here he had stood with the snowstorm beating on his face.
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