The Shadow of a Dream Volume 163,; A Story (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1890 Excerpt: ...render, and so the obstacle of his poverty and pride was got over. I cannot say that it pleased us greatly to learn that Nevil thought of sailing from Boston, and hoped to see us; but we had our curiosity to satisfy, as well as our intangible obligation of hospitality to fulfil, and my wife wrote asking him to our house for such time as he should have between arriving and departing. He was delayed in one way or other so that he came in the morning, and sailed at noon; she did not meet him at all, but I went over to the ship in East Boston, and saw him off, and then gave her such report of him as I could. I am afraid it was rather vague. I said he seemed shy, as if he were embarrassed by his knowledge that I knew his story; he seemed a little cold; he seemed a little more clerical. I suppose I had really expected him to speak with intense feeling of the Faulkners, and that it disappointed me when he only mentioned them in giving me the messages they had sent. I do not know why I should have felt repelled, almost hurt by his manner; but I dare say it was because I had met him so full of a sympathy which I could not express, and which he could not recognise. I was aware afterward of having derived my mood rather from Mrs. Faulkner's representations of him than from my own recollections. Perhaps I had a romantic wish to behold a man whom the waters had passed over, and who gave evidence of what he had undergone. But Nevil appeared as he had always appeared to me: pure, gentle, serene; not broken, not bruised, and by no means prepared for the compassion which I was prepared to lavish upon him. I did not reflect that the intimacy had proceeded much more rapidly on my part than on his. He was in company with a wealthy parishioner, and he presented me as a fellow-W...