Kilmeny 's case certainly seemed a strange one , and the more he thought of it the stranger it seemed . `` It strikes me as something very peculiar that she should be able to make sounds only when she is not thinking about it , '' he reflected . `` I wish David Baker could examine her . But I suppose that is out of the question . That grim pair who have charge of her would never consent . '' CHAPTER IX . THE STRAIGHT SIMPLICITY OF EVE For the next three weeks Eric Marshall seemed to himself to be living two lives , as distinct from each other as if he possessed a double personality . In one , he taught the Lindsay district school diligently and painstakingly ; solved problems ; argued on theology with Robert Williamson ; called at the homes of his pupils and took tea in state with their parents ; went to a rustic dance or two and played havoc , all unwittingly , with the hearts of the Lindsay maidens . But this life was a dream of workaday . He only LIVED in the other , which was spent in an old orchard , grassy and overgrown , where the minutes seemed to lag for sheer love of the spot and the June winds made wild harping in the old spruces . Here every evening he met Kilmeny ; in that old orchard they garnered hours of quiet happiness together ; together they went wandering in the fair fields of old romance ; together they read many books and talked of many things ; and , when they were tired of all else , Kilmeny played to him and the old orchard echoed with her lovely , fantastic melodies . At every meeting her beauty came home afresh to him with the old thrill of glad surprise . In the intervals of absence it seemed to him that she could not possibly be as beautiful as he remembered her ; and then when they met she seemed even more so . He learned to watch for the undisguised light of welcome that always leaped into her eyes at the sound of his footsteps . She was nearly always there before him and she always showed that she was glad to see him with the frank delight of a child watching for a dear comrade . She was never in the same mood twice . Now she was grave , now gay , now stately , now pensive . But she was always charming . Thrawn and twisted the old Gordon stock might be , but it had at least this one offshoot of perfect grace and symmetry . Her mind and heart , utterly unspoiled of the world , were as beautiful as her face .
All the ugliness XXXXX existence had passed her by , shrined in her double solitude of upbringing and muteness .
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