DAVID and Eve sat together at their little breakfast, and pressed each other to eat; but neither could eat. David's night excursion had filled Eve with new misgivings. It was the act of a madman; and we know the fears that beset her on that head, and their ground. He had come home shivering, and she had forced him to keep his bed all that day. He was not well now, and bodily weakness, added to his other afflictions, bore his spirit down, though nothing could cow it.
“When are you to sail?” inquired Eve, sick-like.
“In three days. Cargo won't be on board before.”
“A coasting vessel?”
“A man can do his duty in a coaster as well as a merchantman or a frigate.” But he sighed.
“Would to God you had never seen her!”
“Don't blame her—blame me. I had good advice from my little sister, but I was willful. Never mind, Eve, I needn't to blush for loving her; she is worthy of it all.”
“Well, think so, David, if you can.” And Eve, thoroughly depressed, relapsed into silence. The postman's rap was heard, and soon after a long inclosure was placed in Eve's hand.
Poor little Eve did not receive many letters; and, sad as she was, she opened this with some interest; but how shall I paint its effect? She kept uttering shrieks of joy, one after another, at each sentence. And when she had shrieked with joy many times, she ran with the large paper round to David. “You are captain of the Rajah! ah! the new ship! ah! eleven hundred tons! Oh, David! Oh, my heart! Oh! oh! oh!” and the poor little thing clasped her arms round her brother's neck, and kissed him again and again, and cried and sobbed for joy.
All men, and most women, go through life without once knowing what it is to cry for joy, and it is a comfort to think that Eve's pure and deep affection brought her such a moment as this in return for much trouble and sorrow. David, stout-hearted as he was, was shaken as the sea and the wind had never yet shaken him. He turned red and white alternately, and trembled. “Captain of the Rajah! It is too good—it is too good! I have done nothing for it”; and he was incredulous.
Eve was devouring the inclosure. “It is her doing,” she cried; “it is all her doing.”
“Whose?”
“Who do you think? I am in the air! I am in heaven! Bless her—oh, God, bless her for this. Never speak against cold-blooded folk before me; they have twice the principle of us hot ones: I always said so. She is a good creature; she is a true friend; and you accused her of ingratitude!”
“That I never did.”
“You did—Rajah—he! he! oh!—and I defended her. Here, take and read that: is that a commission or not? Now you be quiet, and let us see what she says. No, I can't; I cannot keep the tears out of my eyes. Do take and read it, David; I'm blind.”
David took the letter, kissed it, and read it out to Eve, and she kept crowing and shedding tears all the time.
“DEAR MISS DODD—I admire too much your true affection for your brother to be indifferent to your good opinion. Think of me as leniently as you can. Perhaps it gives me as much pleasure to be able to forward you the inclosed as the receipt of it, I hope, may give you.
“It would, I think, be more wise, and certainly more generous, not to let Mr. Dodd think he owes in any degree to me that which, if the world were just, would surely have been his long ago. Only, some few months hence, when it can do him no harm, I could wish him not to think his friend Lucy was ungrateful, or even cold in his service, who saved her life, and once honored her with so warm an esteem. But all this I confide to your discretion and your justice. Dear Miss Dodd, those who give pain to others do not escape it themselves, nor is it just they should. My insensibility to the merit of persons of the other sex has provoked my relatives; they have punished me for declining Mr. Dodd's inferiors with a bitterness Mr. Dodd, with far more cause, never showed me; so you see at each turn I am reminded of his superiority.
“The result is, I am separated from my friends, and am living all alone with my dear old nurse, at her farmhouse.
“Since, then, I am unhappy, and you are generous, you will, I think, forgive me all the pain I have caused you, and will let me, in bidding you adieu, subscribe myself,
“Yours affectionately,
“LUCY FOUNTAIN”
“It is the letter of a sweet girl, David, with a noble heart; and she has taken a noble revenge of me for what I said to her the other day, and made her cry, like a little brute as I am. Why, how glum you look!”
“Eve,” said David, “do you think I will accept this from her without herself?”
“Of course you will. Don't be too greedy, David. Leave the girl in peace; she has shown you what she will do and what she won't. One such friend as this is worth a hundred lovers. Give me her dear little note.”
While Eve was persuing it, David went out, but soon returned, with his best coat on, and his hat in his hand. Eve asked in some surprise where he was going in such a hurry.
“To her.”
“Well, David, now I come to read her letter quietly, it is a woman's letter all over; you may read it which way you like. What need had she to tell me she has just refused offers? And then she tells me she is all alone. That sounds like a hint. The company of a friend might he agreeable. Brush your coat first, at any rate; there's something white on it; it is a paper; it is pinned on. Come here. Why, what is this? It is written on. 'Adieu.'” And Eve opened her eyes and mouth as well.
She asked him when he wore the coat last.
“The day before yesterday.”
“Were you in company of any girls?”
“Not I.”
“But this is written by a girl, and it is pinned on by a girl; see how it is quilted in!! that's proof positive. Oh! oh! oh! look here. Look at these two 'Adieus'—the one in the letter and this; they are the same—precisely the same. What, in Heaven's name, is the meaning of this? Were you in her company that night?”
“No.”
“Will you swear that?”
“No, I can't swear it, because I was asleep a part of the time; but waking in her company I was not.”
“It is her writing, and she pinned it on you.”
“How can that be, Eve?”
“I don't know; I am sure she did, though. Look at this 'Adieu' and that; you'll never get it out of my head but what one hand wrote them both. You are so green, a girl would come behind you and pin it on you, and you never feel her.”
While saying these words, Eve slyly repinned it on him without his feeling or knowing anything about it.
David was impatient to be gone, but she held him a minute to advise him.
“Tell her she must and shall. Don't take a denial. If you are cowardly, she will be bold; but if you are bold and resolute, she will knuckle down. Mind that; and don't go about it with such a face as that, as long as my arm. If she says 'No,' you have got the ship to comfort you. Oh! I am so happy!”
“No, Eve,” said David, “if she won't give me herself, I'll never take her ship. I'd die a foretopman sooner;” and, with these parting words, he renewed all his sister's anxiety. She sat down sorrowfully, and the horrible idea gained on her that there was mania in David's love for Lucy.
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