Mr. Henderson was with us through the whole affair. One thing seemed to me quite strange. I dropped my glove among some flowers, while I was busy putting up a wreath of lilies, and I saw him through a bower of hemlock trees walk up to the spot, and slyly confiscate the article. In a moment I came back, and said, "I dropped my glove here. Where can it be?" The wretched creature helped me search for it, with every appearance of interest, but never offered to restore the stolen goods. It was all so quiet—so private! You know, gentlemen often pretend, as a matter of gallantry, that they want your glove, or a ribbon, or some such memento; but this was all so secret. He evidently thinks I don't know it; and, Belle—what should you think about it?
Eva.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
ENCHANTMENT AND DISENCHANTMENT.
During a month after Easter, I was, so to speak, in a state of mental somnambulism, seeing the visible things of this mortal life through an enchanted medium, in which old, prosaic, bustling New York, with its dry drudgeries and uninteresting details, became suddenly vivified and glorified; just as when some rosy sunset floods with light the matter-of-fact architecture of Printing-House Square, and etherealizes every line, and guides every detail, and heightens every bit of color, till it all seems picturesque and beautiful.
I did not know what was the matter with me, but I felt somehow as if I had taken the elixir of life and was breathing the air of an immortal youth. Whenever I sat down to write I found my inspiration. I no longer felt myself alone in my thoughts and speculations; I wrote to another mind, a mind that I felt would recognize mine; and then I carried what I had written, and read it to Ida Van Arsdel for her criticisms. Ida was a capital critic, and had graciously expressed her willingness and desire to aid me in this way, to any extent. But was it Ida who was my inspiration?
Sitting by, bent over her embroidery, or coming in accidentally and sitting down to listen, was Eva; full of thought, full of inquiry; sometimes gay and airy, sometimes captious and controversial—always suggestive and inspiring. From these readings grew talks protracted and confidential, on all manner of subjects; and each talk was the happy parent of more talks, till it seemed that there was growing up an endless series of occasions for our having long and exciting interviews; for, what was said yesterday, in the reflections and fancies of the night following, immediately blossomed out into queries and consequences and inferences on both sides, which it was immediately and pressingly necessary that we should meet to compare and adjust. Now, when two people are in this state of mind, it is surprising what a number of providential incidents are always bringing them together. It was perfectly astonishing to us both to find how many purely accidental interviews we had. If I went out for a walk, I was sure, first or last, to meet her. To be sure I took to walking very much in streets and squares where I had observed she might be expected to appear—but that did not make the matter seem to me the less unpremeditated.