Snowdrops and Maidenly Delights

So Hilda, as far as Kenyon could discern, still did not love him, though
she admitted him within the quiet circle of her affections as a dear
friend and trusty counsellor. If we knew what is best for us, or could
be content with what is reasonably good, the sculptor might well have
been satisfied, for a season, with this calm intimacy, which so sweetly
kept him a stranger in her heart, and a ceremonious guest; and yet
allowed him the free enjoyment of all but its deeper recesses. The
flowers that grow outside of those minor sanctities have a wild, hasty
charm, which it is well to prove; there may be sweeter ones within the
sacred precinct, but none that will die while you are handling them, and
bequeath you a delicious legacy, as these do, in the perception of their
evanescence and unreality.

And this may be the reason, after all, why Hilda, like so many other
maidens, lingered on the hither side of passion; her finer instinct and
keener sensibility made her enjoy those pale delights in a degree of
which men are incapable. She hesitated to grasp a richer happiness, as
possessing already such measure of it as her heart could hold, and of a
quality most agreeable to her virgin tastes.

Certainly, they both were very happy. Kenyon's genius, unconsciously
wrought upon by Hilda's influence, took a more delicate character than
heretofore. He modelled, among other things, a beautiful little statue
of maidenhood gathering a snowdrop. It was never put into marble,
however, because the sculptor soon recognized it as one of those fragile
creations which are true only to the moment that produces them, and
are wronged if we try to imprison their airy excellence in a permanent
material.