"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.