"Again and again in my lonely wanderings had my mind been full of vague longings and boyish aspirations after glory, pleasure, and love: and now the memory of Eve's minute and perfect face—so pure and English in its beauty—by its reality filled up all that had been a blank before; and I was ever in fancied communion with her, while lying on the hill-slopes and looking to the sea that sparkled at the far horizon, into the black ravines through which the mountain brooks went foaming to the rocky shore, or where our deep Welsh llyns were gleaming in the sunshine like gold and turquoise blue—amid the monotony of the silent woods; and so the time passed on, and the day came when I was to start for Beverley Lodge, and thence to Sandhurst; while love and ambition rendered me selfishly oblivious of poor old Uncle Morgan, and the fervent wishes and blessings with which he followed my departing steps.
"A month's visit to Beverley Lodge, amid the fertility of Berkshire, many a ride and ramble in the Vale of the White Horse, many an hour spent by us together in the shady woods, the luxurious garden, in the beautiful conservatory, and in the deep leafy lanes where we wandered at will, confirmed the love my cousin and I bore each other. A boy and a girl, it came easily about; while many were our regrets and much was our marvelling that we had not known each other earlier.
"No two men make a declaration of love, perhaps, in precisely the same way, though it all comes to the same thing in the end; but it might be interesting to know in what precise terms, and having so little choice, Father Adam declared his passion for Mother Eve, and in what fashion she responded.
"I know not now how my love for my little Eve was expressed; but told it was, and I departed for college the happiest student there, every hour I could spare from study and drill being spent in or about Beverley Lodge.
"With an income of forty pounds per annum till gazetted, I almost thought myself rich; and I had three years before me—it seemed an eternity of joy—to look forward to. At Sandhurst I was, as you know, entered as a Queen's cadet free, and a candidate for the infantry. I had thus to master algebra, the three first books of Euclid, French, German, and 'Higher Fortification;' but in the pages of Straith, amid the ravelins of Vauban and the casemates of Coehorn, I seemed to see only the name and the tender eyes of Eve. The daily drills, in which I was at first an enthusiast, became dull and prosaic, and hourly I made terrible mistakes, for Eve's voice was ever in my ear, and her delicate beauty haunted me; for wondrously delicate it became, as consumption—which she fatally inherited from her mother—shed over it a medium that was alike soft and alluring.
"Since then I have met girls of all kinds everywhere. Though only a sub, I have been dressed for, played for, sung for; but never have I had the delight of those remembered days that were passed with Eve Beverley in our dream of cousinly love; however, a rude waking was at hand!
"When she was eighteen, and I a year older, she told me one day that her father had been insisting upon her marrying an old friend of his, a retired Sudder judge, who had proposed in form; but she had laughed at the idea.
"'Absurd! It is so funny of papa to have a husband ready cut and dry for me; is it not, Jack?' said she.
"I did not think so; but my heart beat painfully as I leaned caressingly over her, and played with her beautiful hair.
"'I don't thank him for selecting a husband for me, Jack, dear,' she continued, pouting; 'do you?'"