THREE:She became inexpressibly dear to him during those meetings. Her timidity and innocence charmed him so completely that he preserved them longer than he had at first felt inclined to do. His vanity was tickled to think that though she was past thirty he was the first man who had kissed her. She was not bad-looking, either, with her straight black brows and huge eyes��in spite of toil she did not look her years, and during the weeks of his courtship she seemed to grow younger and prettier, she grew daintier. Yet she largely retained the qualities that had first attracted him, her admiration for him was unbounded and guilelessly expressed��she would listen in tender reverence to his yarns, and received his caresses with a humble gratitude that went straight to his heart."Do not look on me so wildly, Margaret," said he; "these bruises are nothing. Aye, even that," as she was examining, with the apprehensions of a tender wife, the black and almost shapeless appearance of his right hand and arm; "even that would be as well as ever in less than a month��but it is their triumph and their treachery I feel: it is this that gnaws my very soul��and all because I thought myself too wise to take a woman's counsel,��and in the very prison, too, where they thrust my poor mother! I have not tasted meat or drink since I entered. There stand the water and the bread��though the burning in my throat almost drives me mad: not a drop will I taste, though the leech told me to drink as much as I could��nor a morsel will I eat."