"
With much more feeling, and therefore power, than was his custom,
he sang as follows:
"I would I knew Thee better--
That trust could banish doubt;
I wish that from 'the letter'
Thy Spirit might shine out.
I wish that heaven were nearer--
That earth were more akin
To the home that should be dearer
Than the one so marred by sin.
I wish that deserts dreary
Might blossom as the rose,
That souls, despairing, weary,
Might smile and find repose."
Before singing the next stanza he could not forbear looking to see
if Miss Mayhew were listening, and thus it happened that his glance
gave peculiar emphasis to the thought expressed. She was looking
at him with an intensity of expression that he did not understand.
Nothing that he did escaped her, and the quick flash of his eyes
in her direction unintentionally gave the following words the force
and pointedness of an open rebuke;
"I wish that outward beauty
Were the mirror of the heart,
That purity and duty
Supplanted wily art."
He did not see that with a sudden flame of scarlet in her face she
stepped back on the dusky piazza as abruptly as if she had received
a blow. Had he done so, he might not have sung as effectively the
remaining verses.
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