Her experience was such as a goddess's
might be who should descend from heaven and take up her abode in bodily
form among her worshippers, accepting in person the devotion previously
lavished on her effigy.
With Miss Ludington this devotion was the more intense as it was but a
sublimed form of selfishness, like that of the mother's to her child,
whom she feels to be a part, and the choicest part, of her own life. The
instinct of maternity, never gratified in her by the possession of
children, asserted itself toward this radiant girl, whose being was so
much closer to hers than even a child's could be, whose life was so
wonderfully her own and yet not her own, that, in loving her, self-love
became transfigured and adorable. She could not have told whether the
sense of their identity or their difference were the sweeter.
Her delight in the girl's loveliness was a transcendent blending of a
woman's pleasure in her own beauty and a lover's admiration of it. She
had transferred to Ida all sense of personal identity excepting just
enough to taste the joy of loving, admiring, and serving her.
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