Home as Found, James Fenimore Cooper [e novels to read .txt] 📗

was in the library, her father having left it, a few minutes before, to mount his horse. She was seated at a table, writing a letter to an aged relative of her own sex, to communicate the circumstance of her marriage. The door was half open, and Paul appeared at it unexpectedly, coming in search of his young bride. His step had been so light, and so intently was our heroine engaged with her letter, that his approach was unnoticed, though it had now been a long time that the ear of Eve had learned to know his tread, and her heart to beat at its welcome sound. Perhaps a beautiful woman is never so winningly lovely as when, in her neat morning attire, she seems fresh and sweet as the new-born day. Eve had paid a little more attention to her toilette than usual even, admitting just enough of a properly selected jewelry, a style of ornament, that so singularly denotes the refinement of a gentlewoman, when used understandingly, and which so infallibly betrays vulgarity under other circumstances, while her attire had rather more than its customary finish, though it was impossible not to perceive, at a glance, that she was in an undress. The Parisian skill of Annette, on which Mr. Bragg based so many of his hopes of future fortune, had cut and fitted the robe to her faultlessly beautiful person, with a tact, or it might be truer to say a contact, so perfect, that it even left more charms to be imagined than it displayed, though the outline of the whole figure was that of the most lovely womanhood. But, notwithstanding the exquisite modelling of the whole form, the almost fairy lightness of the full, swelling, but small foot, about which nothing seemed lean and attenuated, the exquisite hand that appeared from among the ruffles of the dress, Paul stood longest in nearly breathless admiration of the countenance of his "bright and blooming bride." Perhaps there is no sentiment so touchingly endearing to a man, as that which comes over him as he contemplates the beauty, confiding faith, holy purity and truth that shine in the countenance of a young, unpractised, innocent woman, when she has so far overcome her natural timidity as to pour out her tenderness in his behalf, and to submit to the strongest impulses of her nature. Such was now the fact with Eve. She was writing of her husband, and, though her expressions were restrained by taste and education, they partook of her unutterable fondness and devotion. The tears stood in her eyes, the pen trembled in her hand, and she shaded her face as if to conceal the weakness from herself. Paul was alarmed, he knew not why, but Eve in tears was a sight painful to him. In a moment he was at her side, with an arm placed gently around her waist, and he drew her fondly towards his bosom.

"Eve--dearest Eve!" he said--"what mean these tears?"

The serene eye, the radiant blush, and the meek tenderness that rewarded his own burst of feeling, reassured the young husband, and, deferring to the sensitive modesty of so young a bride, he released hold, retaining only a hand.

"It is happiness, Powis--nothing but excess of happiness, which makes us women weaker, I fear, than even sorrow."

Paul kissed her hands, regarded her with an intensity of admiration, before which the eyes of Eve rose and fell, as if dazzled while meeting his looks, and yet unwilling to lose them; and then he reverted to the motive which had brought him to the library.

"My father-- your father, that is now--"

"Cousin Jack!"

"Cousin Jack, if you will, has just made me a present, which is second only to the greater gift I received from your own excellent parent, yesterday, at the altar. See, dearest Eve, he has bestowed this lovely image of yourself on me; lovely, though still so far from the truth. And here is the miniature of my poor mother, also, to supply the place of the one carried away by the Arabs."

Eve gazed long and wistfully at the beautiful features of this image of her husband's mother. She traced in them that pensive thought, that winning kindness, that had first softened her heart towards Paul, and her lips trembled as she pressed the insensible glass against them.

"She must have been very handsome, Eve, and there is a look of melancholy tenderness in the face, that would seem almost to predict an unhappy blighting of the affections."

"And yet this young, ingenuous, faithful woman entered on the solemn engagement we have just made, Paul, with as many reasonable hopes of a bright future as we ourselves!"

"Not so, Eve--confidence and holy truth were wanting at the nuptials of my parents. When there is deception at the commencement of such a contract, it is not difficult to predict the end."

"I do not think, Paul, you ever deceived; that noble heart of yours is too generous!"

"If any thing can make a man worthy of such a love, dearest, it is the perfect and absorbing confidence with which your sex throw themselves on the justice and faith of ours. Did that spotless heart ever entertain a doubt of the worth of any living being on which It had set its affections?"

"Of itself, often, and they say self-love lies at the bottom of all our actions."

"You are the last person to hold this doctrine, beloved, for those who live most in your confidence declare that all traces of self are lost in your very nature."

"Most in my confidence! My father--- my dear, kind father, has then been betraying his besetting weakness, by extolling the gift he has made."

"Your kind, excellent father, knows too well the total want of necessity for any such thing. If the truth must be confessed, I have been passing a quarter of an hour with worthy Ann Sidley."

"Nanny--dear old Nanny!--and you have been weak enough, traitor, to listen to the eulogiums of a nurse on her child!"

"All praise of thee, my blessed Eve, is grateful to my ears, and who can speak more understandingly of those domestic qualities which lie at the root of domestic bliss, than those who have seen you in your most intimate life, from childhood down to the moment when you have assumed the duties of a wife?"

"Paul, Paul, thou art beside thyself; too much learning hath made thee mad!"

"I am not mad, most beloved and beautiful Eve, but blessed to a degree that might indeed upset a stronger reason."

"We will now talk of other things," said Eve, raising his hand to her lips in respectful affection, and looking gratefully up into his fond and eloquent eyes; "I hope the feeling of which you so lately spoke has subsided, and that you no longer feel yourself a stranger in the dwelling of your own family."

"Now that I can claim a right through you, I confess that my conscience is getting to be easier on this point. Have you been yet told of the arrangement that the older heads meditate in reference to our future means?"

"I would not listen to my dear father when he wished to introduce the subject, for I found that it was a project that made distinctions between Paul Effingham and Eve Effingham, two that I wish, henceforth, to consider as one in all things."

"In this, darling, you may do yourself injustice as well as me. But perhaps you may not wish me to speak on the subject, neither."

"What would my lord?"

"Then listen, and the tale is soon told. We are each other's natural heirs. Of the name and blood of Effingham, neither has a relative nearer than the other, for, though but cousins in the third degree, our family is so small as to render the husband, in this case, the natural heir of the wife, and the wife the natural heir of the husband. Now your father proposes that his estates be valued, and that my father settle on you a sum of equal amount, which his wealth, will fully enable him to do, and that I become the possessor in reversion, of the lands that would otherwise have been yours."

"You possess me, my heart, my affections, my duty; of what account is money after this!"

"I perceive that you are so much and so truly woman, Eve, that we must arrange all this without consulting you at all."

"Can I be in safer hands? A father that has always been too indulgent of my unreasonable wishes--a second parent that has only contributed too much to spoil me in the same thoughtless manner--and a----"

"Husband," added Paul, perceiving that Eve hesitated at pronouncing to his face a name so novel though so endearing, "who will strive to do more than either in the same way."

"Husband," she added, looking up into his face with a smile innocent as that of an infant, while the crimson tinge covered her forehead, "if the formidable word must be uttered, who is doing all he can to increase a self-esteem that is already so much greater than it ought to be."

A light tap at the door caused Eve to start and look embarrassed, like one detected in a fault, and Paul to release the hand that he had continued to hold during the brief dialogue.

"Sir--ma'am"--said the timid, meek voice of Ann Sidley, as she held the door ajar, without presuming to look into the room; "Miss Eve-- Mr. Powis."

"Enter, my good Nanny," said Eve, recovering her self-composure in a moment, the presence of her nurse always appearing to her as no more than a duplication of herself. "What is your wish?"

"I hope I am not unreasonable, but I knew that Mr. Effingham was alone with you, here, and I wished--that is, ma'am,--Miss Eve--Sir--"

"Speak your wishes, my good old nurse--am I not your own child, and is not this your own child's"--again Eve hesitated, blushed, and smiled, ere she pronounced the formidable word--"husband."

"Yes, ma'am; and God be praised that it is so. I dreamt, it is now four years, Miss Eve; we were then travelling among the Denmarkers, and I dreamt that you were married to a great prince--"

"But your dream has not come true, my good Nanny, and you see by this fact that it is not always safe to trust in dreams."

"Ma'am, I do not esteem princes by the kingdoms and crowns, but by their qualities--and if Mr. Powis be not a prince, who is?"

"That, indeed, changes the matter," said the gratified young wife; "and I believe, after all, dear Nanny, that I must become a convert to your theory of dreams."

"While I must always deny it, good Mrs Sidley, if this is a specimen of its truth," said Paul, laughing. "But, perhaps this prince proved unworthy of Miss Eve, after all?"

"Not he, sir; he made her a most kind and affectionate husband; not humouring all her idle wishes, if Miss Eve could have had such wishes, but cherishing her, and counselling her, and protecting her, showing as much tenderness for her as her own father, and as much love for her as I had myself."

"In which case, my worthy nurse, he proved an invaluable husband," said Eve, with glistening eyes--"and I trust, too, that he was considerate and friendly to you?"

"He took me by the hand, the morning after the marriage, and said, Faithful Ann Sidley, you have nursed and attended my beloved when a child, and as a young