“And there was your neighbor over the way, who passes for a woman who has failed in her career, because she is an old maid.  People wag solemn heads of pity, and say that she made so great a mistake in not marrying the brilliant and famous man who was for long years her suitor.  It is clear that no orange flower will ever bloom for her.  The young people make tender romances about her as they watch her, and think of her solitary hours of bitter regret, and wasting longing, never to be satisfied.  When I first came to town I shared this sympathy, and pleased my imagination with fancying her hard struggle with the conviction that she had lost all that made life beautiful.  I supposed that if I looked at her through my spectacles, I should see that it was only her radiant temper which so illuminated her dress, that we did not see it to be heavy sables.  But when, one day, I did raise my glasses and glanced at her, I did not see the old maid whom we all pitied for a secret sorrow, but a woman whose nature was a tropic, in which the sun shone, and birds sang, and flowers bloomed forever.  There were no regrets, no doubts and half wishes, but a calm sweetness, a transparent peace.  I saw her blush when that old lover passed by, or paused to speak to her, but it was only the sign of delicate feminine consciousness.  She knew his love, and honored it, although she could not understand it nor return it.  I looked closely at her, and I saw that although all the world had exclaimed at her indifference to such homage, and had declared it was astonishing she should lose so fine a match, she would only say simply and quietly—­

“’If Shakespeare loved me and I did not love him, how could I marry him?’

“Could I be misanthropical when I saw such fidelity, and dignity, and simplicity?

“You may believe that I was especially curious to look at that old lover of hers, through my glasses.  He was no longer young, you know, when I came, and his fame and fortune were secure.  Certainly I have heard of few men more beloved, and of none more worthy to be loved.  He had the easy manner of a man of the world, the sensitive grace of a poet, and the charitable judgment of a wide traveller.  He was accounted the most successful and most unspoiled of men.  Handsome, brilliant, wise, tender, graceful, accomplished, rich, and famous, I looked at him, without the spectacles, in surprise, and admiration, and wondered how your neighbor over the way had been so entirely untouched by his homage.  I watched their intercourse in society, I saw her gay smile, her cordial greeting; I marked his frank address, his lofty courtesy.  Their manner told no tales.  The eager world was balked, and I pulled out my spectacles.