He brought back, however, a nature unspoiled by the
camp. He was frank, open, generous, and ardent. His heart was quick
and kind in its impulses, and was perhaps a little softer from having
suffered: it was full of tenderness for Annette. He had received
frequent accounts of her from his mother; and the mention of her
kindness to his lonely parent, had rendered her doubly dear to him. He
had been wounded; he had been a prisoner; he had been in various
troubles, but had always preserved the braid of her hair, which she
had bound round his arm. It had been a kind of talisman to him; he had
many a time looked upon it as he lay on the hard ground, and the
thought that he might one day see Annette again, and the fair fields
about his native village, had cheered his heart, and enabled him to
bear up against every hardship.
He had left Annette almost a child--he found her a blooming woman. If
he had loved her before, he now adored her. Annette was equally struck
with the improvement which time had made in her lover. She noticed,
with secret admiration, his superiority to the other young men of the
village; the frank, lofty, military air, that distinguished him from
all the rest at their rural gatherings.
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