But the
years have not been so cruel to Nancy. The firm yet placid mouth,
the clear veracious glance of the brown eyes, speak now of a nature
that has been tested and has kept its highest qualities; and even
the costume, with its dainty neatness and purity, has more
significance now the coquetries of youth can have nothing to do with
it.
Mr and Mrs Godfrey Cass (any higher title has died away from
Raveloe lips since the old Squire was gathered to his fathers, and his
inheritance was divided) have turned round to look for the tall aged
man and the plainly-dressed woman who are a little behind- Nancy
having observed that they must wait for 'father and Priscilla'- and
now they all turn into a narrower path leading across the churchyard
to a small gate opposite the Red House. We will not follow them now;
for may there not be some others in this departing congregation whom
we should like to see again- some of those who are not likely to be
handsomely clad, and whom we may not recognize so easily as the master
and mistress of the Red House?
But it is impossible to mistake Silas Marner. His large brown
eyes seem to have gathered a longer vision, as is the way with eyes
that have been short-sighted in early life, and they have a less
vague, a more answering look; but in everything else one sees signs of
a frame much enfeebled by the lapse of the sixteen years. The weaver's
bent shoulders and white hair give him almost the look of advanced
age, though he is not more than five-and-fifty; but there is the
freshest blossom of youth close by his side- a blonde dimpled girl
of eighteen, who has vainly tried to chastise her curly auburn hair
into smoothness under her brown bonnet: the hair ripples as
obstinately as a brooklet under the March breeze, and the little
ringlets burst away from the restraining comb behind and show
themselves below the bonnet-crown.
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