'Her large soft eyes,
bright with tears, looked piteously up in my face; her delicate lips
trembled, as if she wished to speak, but dared not; her smooth round
arms were the very perfection of beauty. Child as she seemed in years
and emotions, she looked a woman in loveliness and form. For the moment
I was too much astonished by the suddenness of her supplicating action
to move or speak. As soon as I recovered myself I attempted to fondle
and console her, but she shrunk from my embrace, and seemed inclined to
escape from me again; until I touched once more the strings of the lute,
and then she uttered a subdued exclamation of delight, nestled close up
to me, and looked into my face with such a strange expression of mingled
adoration and rapture, that I declare to you, Julia, I felt as bashful
before her as a boy.'
'You bashful! The Senator Vetranio bashful!' exclaimed Julia, looking
up with an expression of the most unfeigned incredulity and
astonishment.
'The lute,' pursued Vetranio gravely, without heeding the interruption,
'was my sole means of procuring any communication with her.
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