Home as Found by James Fenimore Cooper (books to read as a couple .TXT) 📖

did she not accept the first proposal. To the chagrin of Steadfast, and probably to the reader's surprise, Aristabulus informed his friend that Eve's manner and language had been full of encouragement.

"She thanked me for the offer, Mr. Dodge," he said, "and her wishes for my future prosperity at the west, were warm and repeated. Eve Effingham is, indeed, a charming creature!"

"At the west! Perhaps she meant differently from what you imagine. I know her well; the girl is full of art."

"Art, sir! She spoke as plainly as woman could speak, and I repeat that I feel considerably encouraged. It is something, to have had so plain a conversation with Eve Effingham."

Mr. Dodge swallowed his discontent, and the whole party soon embarked, to return to the village; the commodore and general taking a boat by themselves, in order to bring their discussions on human affairs in general, to a suitable close.

That night, Sir George Templemore, asked an interview with Mr. Effingham, when the latter was alone in his library.

"I sincerely hope this request is not the forerunner of a departure," said the host kindly, as the young man entered, "in which case I shall regard you as one unmindful of the hopes he has raised. You stand pledged by implication, if not in words, to pass another month with us."

"So far from entertaining an intention so faithless, my dear sir, I am fearful that you may think I trespass too far on your hospitality."

He then communicated his wish to be allowed to make Grace Van Cortlandt his wife. Mr. Effingham heard him with a smile, that showed he was not altogether unprepared for such a demand, and his eye glistened as he squeezed the other's hand.

"Take her with all my heart, Sir George," he said, "but remember you are transferring a tender plant into a strange soil. There are not many of your countrymen to whom I would confide such a trust, for I know the risk they run who make ill-assorted unions--"

"Ill-assorted unions, Mr. Effingham!"

"Yours will not be one, in the ordinary acceptation of the term, I know; for in years, birth and fortune, you and my dear niece are as much, on an equality as can be desired: but it is too often an ill- assorted union for an American woman to become an English wife. So much depends on the man, that with one in whom I have less confidence than I have in you, I might justly hesitate. I shall take a guardian's privilege, though Grace be her own mistress, and give you one solemn piece of advice--always respect the country of the woman you have thought worthy to bear your name."

"I hope always to respect every thing that is hers; but, why this particular caution?--Miss Van Cortlandt is almost English in her heart."

"An affectionate wife will take her bias in such matters, generally from her husband. Your country will be her country, your God her God. Still, Sir George Templemore, a woman of spirit and sentiment can never wholly forget the land of her birth. You love us not in England, and one who settles there will often have occasion to hear gibes and sneers on the land from which she came--"

"Good God, Mr. Effingham, you do not think I shall take my wife into society where--"

"Bear with a proser's doubts, Templemore. You will do all that is well-intentioned and proper, I dare say, in the usual acceptation of the words; but I wish you to do more; that which is wise. Grace has now a sincere reverence and respect for England, feelings that in many particulars are sustained by the facts, and will be permanent; but, in some things, observation, as it usually happens with the young and sanguine, will expose the mistakes into which she has been led by enthusiasm and the imagination. As she knows other countries better, she will come to regard her own with more favourable and discriminating eyes, losing her sensitiveness on account of peculiarities she now esteems, and taking new views of things. Perhaps you will think me selfish, but I shall add, also, that if you wish to cure your wife of any homesickness, the surest mode will be to bring her back to her native land."

"Nay, my dear sir," said Sir George, laughing, "this is very much like acknowledging its blemishes."

"I am aware it has that appearance, and yet the fact is otherwise. The cure is as certain with the Englishman as with the American; and with the German as with either. It depends on a general law which causes us all to over-estimate by-gone pleasures and distant scenes, and to undervalue those of the present moment. You know I have always maintained there is no real philosopher short of fifty, nor any taste worth possessing that is a dozen years old."

Here Mr. Effingham rang the bell, and desired Pierre to request Miss Van Cortlandt to join him in the library. Grace entered blushing and shy, but with a countenance beaming with inward peace. Her uncle regarded her a moment intently, and a tear glistened in his eye, again, as he tenderly kissed her burning cheek.

"God bless you, love," he said--"'tis a fearful change for your sex, and yet you all enter into it radiant with hope, and noble in your confidence. Take her, Templemore," giving her hand to the baronet, "and deal kindly by her. You will not desert us entirely I trust I shall see you both once more in the Wigwam before I die."

"Uncle--uncle--" burst from Grace, as, drowned in tears, she threw herself into Mr. Effingham's arms; "I am an ungrateful girl, thus to abandon all my natural friends. I have acted wrong----"

"Wrong, dearest Miss Van Cortlandt!"

"Selfishly, then, Sir George Templemore," the simple-hearted girl ingenuously added, scarcely knowing how much her words implied-- "Perhaps this matter night be reconsidered."

"I am afraid little would be gained by that, my love," returned the smiling uncle, wiping his eyes at the same instant. "The second thoughts of ladies usually confirm the first, in such matters. God bless you, Grace;--Templemore, may Heaven have you, too, in its holy keeping. Remember what I have said, and to-morrow we will converse further on the subject. Does Eve know of this, my niece?"

The colour went and came rapidly in Grace's cheek, and she looked to the floor, abashed.

"We ought then to send for her," resumed Mr. Effingham, again reaching towards the bell.

"Uncle--" and Grace hurriedly interposed, in time to save the string from being pulled. "Could I keep such an important secret from my dearest cousin!"

"I find that I am the last in the secret, as is generally the case with old fellows, and I believe I am even now de trop ."

Mr. Effingham kissed Grace again affectionately, and, although she strenuously endeavoured to detain him, he left the room.

"We must follow," said Grace, hastily wiping her eyes, and rubbing the traces of tears from her cheeks--"Excuse me, Sir George Templemore; will you open----"

He did, though it was not the door, but his arms. Grace seemed like one that was rendered giddy by standing on a precipice, but when she fell, the young baronet was at hand to receive her. Instead of quitting the library that instant, the bell had announced the appearance of the supper-tray, before she remembered that she had so earnestly intended to do so.

Chapter XXI.

"This day, no man thinks He has business at his house."

KING HENRY VIII.

The warm weather, which was always a little behind that of the lower counties, had now set in among the mountains, and the season had advanced into the first week in July. "Independence Day," as the fourth of that month is termed by the Americans, arrived; and the wits of Templeton were taxed, as usual, in order that the festival might be celebrated with the customary intellectual and moral treat. The morning commenced with a parade of the two or three uniformed companies of the vicinity, much gingerbread and spruce-beer were consumed in the streets, no light potations of whiskey were swallowed in the groceries, and a great variety of drinks, some of which bore very ambitious names, shared the same fate in the taverns.

Mademoiselle Viefville had been told that this was the great American fête ; the festival of the nation; and she appeared that morning in gay ribands, and with her bright, animated face, covered with smiles for the occasion. To her surprise, however, no one seemed to respond to her feelings; and as the party rose from the breakfast-table, she took an opportunity to ask an explanation of Eve, in a little 'aside.'

" Est-ce que je me suis trompée, ma chere ?" demanded the lively Frenchwoman. "Is not this la célébration de votre indépendance ?"

"You are not mistaken, my dear Mademoiselle Viefville, and great preparations are made to do it honour. I understand there is to be a military parade, an oration, a dinner, and fire-works."

" Monsieur votre père----? "

" Monsieur mon père is not much given to rejoicings, and he takes this annual joy, much as a valetudinarian takes his morning draught."

" Et Monsieur Jean Effingham----? "

"Is always a philosopher; you are to expect no antics from him."

" Mais ces jeunes gens, Monsieur Bragg, Monsieur Dodge, et Monsieur Powis, même! "

" Se réjouissent en Américains. I presume you are aware that Mr. Powis has declared himself to be an American?"

Mademoiselle Viefville looked towards the streets, along which divers tall, sombre-looking countrymen, with faces more lugubrious than those of the mutes of a funeral, were sauntering, with a desperate air of enjoyment; and she shrugged her shoulders, as she muttered to herself, " que ces Americains sont drôles! "

At a later hour, however, Eve surprised her father, and indeed most of the Americans of the party, by proposing that the ladies should walk out into the street, and witness the fête.

"My child, this is a strange proposition to come from a young lady of twenty," said her father.

"Why strange, dear sir?--We always mingled in the village fêtes in Europe."

" Certainement " cried the delighted Mademoiselle Viefville; " c'est de rigueur, même "

"And it is de rigueur , here, Mademoiselle, for young ladies to keep out of them," put in John Effingham. "I should be very sorry to see either of you three ladies in the streets of Templeton to-day."

Why so, cousin Jack? Have we any thing to fear from the rudeness of our countrymen? I have always understood, on the contrary, that in no other part of the world is woman so uniformly treated with respect and kindness, as in this very republic of ours; and yet, by all these ominous faces, I perceive that it will not do for her to trust herself in the streets of a village on a festa "

"You are not altogether wrong, in what you now say, Miss Effingham, nor are you wholly right. Woman, as a whole, is well treated in America; and yet it will not do for a lady to mingle in scenes like these, as ladies may and do mingle with them in Europe."

"I have heard this difference accounted for," said Paul Powis, "by the fact that women have no legal rank in this country. In those nations where the station of a lady is protected by legal ordinances,