One day their discourse happened to fall on the subject of Christian names, and Trevor was telling Mary how hers was, and ever had been (a not uncommon taste amongst gentlemen) his greatest favourite. He had always imagined, that every woman who possessed it must be the epitome of all that was pure, sweet, and gentle; and of course he gave Mary to understand that he saw in her, at length, a perfect embodiment of that idea.
"And you, Eugene, you have certainly a very beautiful name," Mary remarked, after listening with a blushing smile to this tender flattery; and she uttered the name now in question, in accents, which must certainly have rendered it even to its owner "a very beautiful name."
"Oh yes!" he replied, laughing, "a most beautifully romantic, and uncommon name; one ought to be a great hero to possess it."
"It was possessed by a very unfortunate hero," Mary replied.
"Oh! you mean Eugene Aram."
"Yes! have you read the book?"
"Why, no; I cannot say that exactly; (with a smile) but I saw that you were reading it on a certain night of delightful memory; for when you left me in so cowardly a manner to face your formidable cousin alone, he found me standing before the fire, deeply absorbed in your late studies, which I had picked up from the floor, in a jealous way, to see with what romantic gentleman you had been so deeply occupied on my entrance. Fancy my relief to discover it was an Eugene. Of course it was for the sake of his name alone that he won your affections. I was even in hopes that I might find the lady to have been a Mary, but I saw it was Madeline, which I thought a great mistake."
Mary laughed with the sweet laugh which had become so clear and joyous of late.
"I could not discover whether the Eugene resembled me in any way," he continued; "to me he seemed a dark, mysterious sort of fellow."
"He was, indeed," Mary replied, "but a man of extraordinary genius."