Seizing him in her arms, she cried over him and kissed him till he
was thoroughly frightened.
A year or two later, on his announcing one day his intention to marry Ida
when he grew up, Miss Ludington explained to him that she was dead. He
was quite overcome with grief at this intelligence, and for a long time
refused to be comforted.
And so it was, that never straying beyond the confines of the eerie
village, and having no companion but Miss Ludington, the boy fell
scarcely less than she under the influence of the beautiful girl who was
the presiding genius of the place.
As he grew older, far from losing its charm, Ida's picture laid upon him
a new spell. Her violet eyes lighted his first love-dreams. She became
his ideal of feminine loveliness, drawing to herself, as the sun draws
mist, all the sentiment and dawning passion of the youth. In a word, he
fell in love with her.
Of course he knew now who she had been. Long before as soon as he was old
enough to understand it, this had been explained to him. But though he
was well aware that neither on earth nor in heaven, nor anywhere in the
universe, did she any more exist, that knowledge was quite without effect
upon the devotion which she had inspired.
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