“An expected guest of my uncle will have, leisure to repose, after the privations and hardships of so weary a voyage,” she said. “This is a house whose door is never closed against the rites of hospitality.”
“If there is aught about my person or attire, to alarm you,” returned the stranger, earnestly, “speak, that it may be cast away—These arms—these foolish arms, had better not have been here,” he added, casting the pistols and dagger indignantly, through a window, into the shrubbery; “Ah! if you knew how unwillingly I would harm any—and, least of all, a woman—you would not fear me!”
“I fear you not,” returned la Belle, firmly. “I dread the misconceptions of the world.”
“What world is here to disturb us? Thou livest in thy pavilion, beautiful Alida, remote from towns and envy, like some favored damsel, over whose happy and charmed life presides a benignant genius. See, here are all the pretty materials, with which thy sex seeks innocent and happy amusement. Thou touchest this lute, when melancholy renders thought pleasing; here are colors to mock, or to eclipse, the beauties of the fields and the mountain, the flower, and the tree; and from these pages are culled thoughts, pure and rich in imagery, as thy spirit is spotless, and thy person lovely!”
Alida listened in amazement; for, while he spoke the young mariner touched the different articles he named, with a melancholy interest, which seemed to say how deeply he regretted that fortune had placed him in a profession, in which their use was nearly denied.
“It is not common for those who live on the sea, to feel this interest in the trifles which constitute a woman’s pleasure,” she said, lingering, spite of her better resolution to depart.
“The spirit of our rude and boisterous trade is then known to you?”
“It were not possible for the relation of a merchant, so extensively known as my uncle, to be ignorant altogether of mariners.”
“Aye, here is proof of it,” returned the stranger, speaking so quick as again to betray how sensitively his mind was constructed. “The History of the American Buccaneers is a rare book to be found in a lady’s library! What pleasure can a mind like that of la belle Barbérie find in these recitals of bloody violence?”
“What pleasure, truly!” returned Alida, half tempted, by the wild and excited eye of her companion, not withstanding all the contradictory evidence which surrounded him, to believe she was addressing one of the very rovers in question. “The book was lent me by a brave seaman, who holds himself in readiness to repress their depredations; and while reading of so much wickedness, I endeavor to recall the devotion of those who risk their lives, in order to protect the weak and innocent—My uncle will be angered, should I longer delay to apprize him of your presence.”