But he was noble,
lofty, sincere, without a touch of meanness in his composition, above
circumlocution, with a simplicity of character strikingly great, but
without anything like puerility or weakness.
The children--for such, in reference to their experience, we may venture
to call them--had learned to recognise in the progress of a very brief
period but a single existence. Ralph looked only for Edith, and cared
nothing for other sunlight; while Edith, with scarcely less reserve than
her bolder companion, had speech and thought for few besides Ralph.
Circumstances contributed not a little to what would appear the natural
growth of this mutual dependence. They were perpetually left together,
and with few of those tacit and readily understood restraints,
unavoidably accompanying the presence of others older than themselves.
Residing, save at few brief intervals, at the plantation of Colonel
Colleton, they saw little and knew less of society; and the worthy
colonel, not less ambitious than proud, having become a politician, had
left them a thousand opportunities of intimacy which had now become so
grateful to them both.
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