She looked wiser
than an owl, he thought.
"What is it? What _is_ your secret? Can't you tell me?"
For it came over him that Maria, for all her inactivity, was really
more truly alive than both the other children put together. Their
tireless, incessant energy was nothing compared to some deep well of
life Maria's outer calm concealed.
He continued to stare at her, reflecting while he did so. Through her
globular exterior, standing here beside him, rose this quiet tide
whose profound and inexhaustible source was nothing less than the
entire universe. Finding himself thus alone with her, he knew his
imagination singularly stirred. The full stream of this imagination--
usually turned into sea--and history-stories--poured now into Maria.
It was the way she had delivered herself of the monosyllable, "Yes,"
that first enflamed him.
The child, obviously, was quite innocent that her uncle's imagination
clothed her in such wonder; she was entirely unselfconscious, and
remained so; but, as she kept silent as well, there was nothing to
interrupt the natural process of his thought. "You're a circle, a
mystery, a globe of wonder," his mind addressed her, gazing downwards
half in play and half in earnest.
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