charmed us at first, and the awed us?

One could say of him, that morally as well as physically he stood
firmly. His deep mourning dress, together with an expression of quiet
manly grief, which at times shaded his countenance, combined to make him
interesting to us; nevertheless, you thought that he looked too stern,
and I very soon lost in his presence my accustomed gaiety. Whenever his
dark grave eyes were fixed upon me, I was conscious that they possessed
a half-bewitching, half-oppressive power over me; I felt myself happy
because of it, yet at the same time filled with anxiety; my very action
was constrained, my hands became cold and did everything blunderingly,
nor ever did I speak so stupidly as when I observed that he listened.
Aunt Lisette gave me one day this maxim: "My dear, remember what I now
tell thee: if a man thinks that thou art a fool, it does not injure thee
the least in his opinion; but if he once thinks that thou considerest
him a fool, then art thou lost for ever with him!" With the last it may
be just as it will--I have heard a clever young man declare that it
would operate upon him like salt on fire--however, this is certain, that
the first part of Aunt Lisette's maxim is correct, since my stupidity in
Ernst's presence did not injure me at all in his opinion, and when he
was kind and gentle, how inexpressibly agreeable he was!

His influence over me became greater each succeeding day: I seemed to
live continually under his eyes; when they beamed on me in kindness, it
was as if a spring breeze passed through my soul; and if his glance was
graver than common, I became still, and out of spirits. It seemed to me
at times--and it is so even to this very day--that if this clear and
wonderfully penetrating glance were only once, and with its full power,
riveted upon me, my very heart would cease to beat. Yet after all, I am
not sure whether I loved him. I hardly think I did; for when he was
absent I then seemed to breathe so freely, yet at the same time, I would
have saved his life by the sacrifice of my own.

In several respects we had no sympathies in common. He had no taste for
music, which I loved passionately; and in reading too our feelings were
so different. He yawned over my favourite romances, nay he even
sometimes would laugh when I was at the point of bursting into tears; I,
on the contrary, yawned over his useful and learned books, and found
them more tedious than I could express. The wor