Time passed on; I had almost reached my fifteenth birthday, and began to consider myself no longer a child. I was very tall for my age, and quite showy-looking; and gentlemen who visited at the house now treated me with all the attention due a young lady; which flattered my vanity very much, and made me think them very agreeable. I remember my father's once sending me from the room, on account of some gentleman's nonsense which he considered me too young to listen to; but I felt very much hurt at such treatment, and almost regarded myself as some heroine of romance imprisoned by cruel parents. Novels were a great injury to me, as indeed they are to every one. Their style was much more extravagant and unnatural than at the present day; and even at this early age, I had read the "Children of the Abbey," the "Mysteries of Udolpho," the "Scottish Chiefs," "Thaddeus of Warsaw," and many others of the same stamp.
But how did I obtain these, you ask? My mother, with her sense and discernment, would not have placed such books in my hands; and you are right. My grandmother was an inveterate novel-reader, but very careful that her books fell into no other hands; so that the only means of satisfying my taste for romantic reading was by stealth. Although novels were proscribed, no other books were placed in my hands; there were then scarcely any children's books published, and consumed as I was by an inordinate passion for reading, was determined to indulge it without being very particular about the means. How often have I watched my opportunity when my grandmother had left her apartment for an afternoon visit or drive, and then drawn forth the cherished volume from beneath the pillow and even from between the bed and sacking bottom! so carefully were they concealed from view. Sometimes, indeed, she locked the door of her room, and took the key with her; and then all ingress was impossible.
What wild, foolish dreams I indulged in!--What romantic-visions of the future that were never realized! How well I remember my sensations on reading the "Scottish Chiefs." Wallace appeared to me almost in the light of a god—so noble, so touching were all his acts and words, that I even envied Helen Mar the privilege of calling herself his wife, and then dying to lay her head in the same grave with him. I resolved to give up all the common-place of life, and cling unto the spiritual—to purify myself from every earth-born wish and habit, and live but in the hope of meeting with a second Wallace. I persevered in this resolution for a whole week; and then meeting with some equally delightful hero of an opposite nature, I changed from grave to gay. My mood during these periods of fascination was as variable as the different heroines I admired. Now I would imitate the pensiveness of Amanda, and go about with streaming tresses, and a softly modulated tone of voice—then I would read of some sprightly heroine who changed all by her vivacity and piquant sayings, and immediately commence springing down three stairs at a time, teazing all the children, and making some reply to everything that was said, which sometimes passed for wit but oftener for impudence—and then again some noble, self-sacrificing character would excite my admiration, and oh! how I longed for some opportunity to signalize myself! A bullet aimed at some loved one, whom I could protect by rushing forward and receiving it myself; but I was not to be killed, only sufficiently wounded to make me appear interesting—disabled in the arm, perhaps, without much suffering, for bodily pain never formed a prominent feature in my ideas of the romantic and striking—I was too great a coward; or else a plunge into the waves to rescue some drowning person from perishing, when I wished just to come near enough to death to elevate me into a heroine for after life.
I looked in the glass, and seeing large, dark eyes, a healthful bloom, and rather pretty features, I concluded that I need not belong to the plain and amiable order, and began to wish most enthusiastically for some romantic admirer; some one who would expose himself to the danger of a sore throat and influenza for the sake of serenading me—who would be rather glad than otherwise to risk his life by jumping down a precipice to bring me some descried wild flower, and who, when away from me, would pass his time in writing extravagant poetry, of which I was to be the bright divinity. Old as I am, I feel almost ashamed to repeat this nonsense now; and had I then possessed more sense myself, or made by mother the confidant of these flights of fancy, I need not now relate my own silly experience to warn you from the effects of novel-reading.
Charles Tracy did not at all realize my romantic ideas of a hero; and one bright day the dissatisfaction which had been gradually gathering in my mind expressed itself in words. I had gone down to a lake at the bottom of the garden to indulge in high-flown meditations; and Charles Tracy stood beside one of the boats which were always kept there.
"Come, Amy," said he, as I drew near, "it is a beautiful day—let us have a row across the lake."
"No," said I, twining my arm around one of the young trees near, "I prefer remaining here."
"You had better come with me," rejoined Charles, "instead of keeping company there with the snapping-turtles. Well," he added after a short pause, "if you will not come with me, why I must go alone."
"Go, then!" said I, bitterly, "you love your own pleasure a great deal better than you do me!"
"Why Amy!" he exclaimed, coming close to me as though doubtful of my sanity, "how very strangely you talk! You know that I love you very much," he continued, "for haven't we been together and quarrelled with each other ever since I can remember? And do I not now bear the marks of the time when you threw the cat in my face to end our childish dispute? And the scar where you stuck the pen-knife in my arm? And don't you remember how you used to pull my hair out by handfuls? How can I help loving you when I call to mind all these tender recollections?"