"I found something here not to be found in all country towns," said Pownal. "Besides, the noise and confusion of a large place never were agreeable to me, and when I return to them they lie like a weight upon my spirits. Instead of a city I ought to have been born in a boundless forest."
"You know I have said, I thought there was a wildness about you," replied Anne, laughing.
"Do you not consider the wild animal tamed?"
"Not entirely. It belongs to a species almost irreclaimable."
"He will never be tamed a second time."
"Then he must not be suffered to escape."
The words flew from the lips of the gay impulsive girl before she was aware. The eloquent blood crimsoned her cheeks, and clapping both her hands upon her face to conceal the blushes, she burst into a laugh as musical as the song of the canary bird. Pownal's eyes sparkled with delight, but before he could utter a word, she had sprung upon her feet.
"It is too bad," she cried, "to compare you to a wild animal. Forgive and forget my impertinence. I have been reading a novel," and as, she said so she took a book from the table, "by an American author, which interests me greatly. Have you seen it?"
Pownal took the book into his hands. It was one of Charles Brockden
Brown's.
"I read it some years ago," he said; "and I remember it made a great impression upon me at the time. It appears to me to be written with wonderful power of enchaining the attention. I could not lay it down until it was finished."