"
Guarded as Van Berg was in his narrative, Miss Burton was able
to read more "between the lines" than in his words. He did not
understand her motive when she said, as if it were her first obvious
thought:
"The picture which you have presented, even to the eye of my fancy,
is uniquely beautiful, and I think it must redeem Miss Mayhew
in your mind, from all her disagreeable associations. But in my
estimation she appeared to even better advantage in the greeting
she gave her father last evening. Was there ever a more delicious
surprise on earth, than that poor man had when he returned and
found a true and loving daughter awaiting him? With her filial
hands she has already lifted him out of the mire of his degradation,
and to-day he is a gentleman whom you involuntarily respect. O
Mr. Van Berg, I cannot tell ou how inexpressibly beautiful and
reassuring such things are to me! You look at the changes we are
witnessing from the standpoint of an artist, I from that of poor
wounded humanity; and what I have seen in Ida Mayhew and her father,
is proof to me that there is a good God above all the chaos around
me, which I cannot understand and which at times disheartens me.
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