There he often met his young friends, and always saw Claudia.  It was Miss Merlin’s good pleasure to approve and encourage this poor but gifted youth; and she took great credit, to herself for her condescension.  She seemed to herself like some high and mighty princess graciously patronizing some deserving young peasant.  She often called him to her side; interested himself in his studies and in his health, praised his assiduity, but warned him not to confine himself too closely to his books, as ambitious students had been known before now to sacrifice their lives to the pursuit of an unattainable fame.  She told him that she meant to interest her father in his fortunes; and that she hoped in another year the judge would be able to procure for him the situation of usher in some school, or tutor in some family.  Although she was younger than Ishmael, yet her tone and manner in addressing him was that of an elder as well as of a superior; and blended the high authority of a young queen with the deep tenderness of a little mother.  For instance, when he would come out at noon, she would often beckon him to her side, as she sat in her garden chair, under the shadow of the great elm tree, with a book of poetry or a piece of needlework in her hands.  And when he came, she would make him sit down on the grass at her feet, and she would put her small, white hand on his burning forehead, and look in his face with her beautiful, dark eyes, and murmur softly: 

“Poor boy; your head aches; I know it does.  You have been sitting under the blazing sun in that south window of the schoolroom, so absorbed in your studies that you forgot to close your shutters.”

And she would take a vial of eau-de-cologne from her pocket, pour a portion of it upon a handkerchief, and with her own fair hand bathe his heated brows; at the same time administering a queenly reprimand, or a motherly caution, as pride or tenderness happened to predominate in her capricious mood.

This royal or maternal manner in this beautiful girl would not have attracted the hearts of most men; but Ishmael, at the age of seventeen, was yet too young to feel that haughty pride of full-grown manhood which recoils from the patronage of women, and most of all from that of the woman they love.

To him, this proud and tender interest for his welfare added a greater and more perilous fascination to the charms of his beautiful love; it drew her nearer to him; it allowed him to worship her, though mutely; it permitted him to sit at her feet, and in that attitude do silent homage to her as his queen; it permitted him to receive the cool touch of her fingers on his heated brow; to hear the soft murmur of her voice close to his ear; to meet the sweet questioning of her eyes.

And, oh, the happiness of sitting at her feet, under the green shadows of that old elm tree!  The light touch of her soft fingers on his brow thrilled him to his heart’s core; the sweet sound of her voice in his ears filled his soul with music; the earnest gaze of her beautiful dark eyes sent electric shocks of joy through all his sensitive frame.