"In which case, my worthy nurse, he proved an invaluable husband," said Eve, with glistening eyes--"and I trust, too, that he was considerate and friendly to you?"
"He took me by the hand, the morning after the marriage, and said, Faithful Ann Sidley, you have nursed and attended my beloved when a child, and as a young lady; and I now entreat you will continue to wait on and serve her as a wife to your dying day. He did, indeed, ma'am; and I think I can now hear the very words he spoke so kindly. The dream, so far, has come good."
"My faithful Ann," said Paul, smiling, and taking the hand of the nurse, "you have been all that is good and true to my best beloved, as a child, and as a young lady; and now I earnestly entreat you to continue to wait on her, and to serve her as my wife, to your dying day."
Nanny clapped her hands with a scream of delight, and bursting into tears, she exclaimed, as she hurried from the room,
"It has all come true--it has all come true!"
A pause of several minutes succeeded this burst of superstitious but natural feeling.
"All who live near you appear to think you the common centre of their affections," Paul resumed; when his swelling heart permitted him to speak.
"We have hitherto been a family of love--God grant it may always continue so."
Another delicious silence, which lasted still longer than the other, followed. Eve then looked up into her husband's face with a gentle curiosity, and observed--
"You have told me a great deal, Powis--explained all but one little thing, that, at the time, caused me great pain. Why did Ducie, when you were about to quit the Montauk together, so unceremoniously stop you, as you were about to get into the boat first; is the etiquette of a man-of-war so rigid as to justify so much rudeness, I had almost called it--?"