"There goes one of the most attractive pictures that humanity can offer," said John Effingham to Mrs. Bloomfield, as Eve walked away; "a young, timid, modest, sensitive girl, so strong in her principles, so conscious of rectitude, so pure of thought, and so warm in her affections, that she views her selection of a husband, as others view their acts of duty and religious faith. With her love has no shame, as it has no weakness."
"Eve Effingham is as faultless as comports with womanhood; and yet I confess ignorance of my own sex, if she receive Mr. Powis as calmly as she received her cousin."
"Perhaps not, for in that case, she could scarcely feel the passion. You perceive that he avoids oppressing her with his notice, and that the meeting passes off without embarrassment. I do believe there is an elevating principle in love, that, by causing us to wish to be worthy of the object most prized, produces the desired effects by stimulating exertion. There, now, are two as perfect beings as one ordinarily meets with, each oppressed by a sense of his or her unworthiness to be the choice of the other."
"Does love, then, teach humility; successful love too?"
"Does it not? It would be hardly fair to press this matter on you, a married woman; for, by the pandects of American society, a man may philosophize on love, prattle about it, trifle on the subject, and even analyze the passion with, a miss in her teens, and yet he shall not allude to it, in a discourse with a matron. Well, chacun à son goût; we are, indeed, a little peculiar in our usages, and have promoted a good deal of village coquetry, and the flirtations of the may-pole, to the drawing-room."
"Is it not better that such follies should be confined to youth, than that they should invade the sanctity of married life, as I understand is too much the case elsewhere?"
"Perhaps so; though I confess it is easier to dispose of a straight-forward proposition from a mother, a father, or a commissioned friend, than to get rid of a young lady, who, propriâ personâ, angles on her own account. While abroad, I had a dozen proposals--"
"Proposals!" exclaimed Mrs. Bloomfield, holding up both hands, and shaking her head incredulously.
"Proposals! Why not, ma'am?--am I more than fifty? am I not reasonably youthful for that period of life, and have I not six or eight thousand a year--"
"Eighteen, or you are much scandalized."