This morning, however, she had not yet seen him, to remind her of the tall and awful hero he now appeared in her eyes; and she had been studiously bringing to her recollection what he had been, when Frances and herself used to vie with each other in declarations of how much they loved him, and ask him, again and again, which he loved best; and she well remembered (but, of course, as the nonsense of children) that he used to tell her, when Frances would get tired of the subject, and run away to play, that it was her he loved best; that she was his favourite, his darling Julia! &c. &c.
Finally, she came to the valiant resolve, to shake off the artificial manner, made up of too much, perhaps sometimes, and, certainly, often too little courtesy, which she felt she had had a part, at least, of yesterday, and to be, what she had ever been, towards one, who had no friends but those at Lodore House. “I don’t mean,” said she to herself, “flying into his arms at meetings and partings, as I used to do, when I was a foolish child;” and here she blushed, and felt astounded, at the recollection; “but I mean to show him frank and unaffected kindness, always the same.”
As she arrived at this sage conclusion, Edmund stood before her, looking not the worse for the want of his hat, the careless arrangement the breeze had thought fit to make of his hair, and the heightened colour caused by running; to say nothing of a certain beaming light, which thoughts, that lovers’ lips dare not confess, sometimes shed through lovers’ eyes. In short, his dream had given a most dangerous, delighted, bridegroom-like expression to his countenance!
On first seeing him Julia blushed, as though, in her late conference with herself, she had been speaking, instead of only thinking, and might have been overheard. In pursuance, however, of her resolve, she extended towards him the open palm of welcome, as she bade him good morning.
When he felt her hand within his, soft as it had been in his dream; when he saw her cheek glowing, and in her eyes, as she lifted them to his, beheld the blended expression of kindness and timidity, called up by the yet unsubdued current of such reflexions as had just passed through her mind; he could not help thinking how like she, at that moment, looked, to what she had appeared in the too delightful vision, from which he had so lately and so unwillingly awakened.
He was so much absorbed by this idea, that his eyes dwelt on her face, till hers were bent on the ground: her blush, too, deepened. She wished to speak, but felt there was something in his manner, which made it impossible for her to keep her resolution of behaving with perfect ease; both remained silent, and she withdrew her hand.
Edmund, who had continued gazing, till aroused by this movement, now felt that some apology was necessary. He stammered out one about her being so much grown, and about trying to trace, in her present appearance, the little favourite of his boyish days. “After the first surprise is over,” he added, encouraged by a gentle look, and playfully lowering his tone, and smiling, as he drew her hand over his arm, and walked slowly on, his head turned towards his companion—“after the first surprise is over, of finding her, whom I can remember carrying about in my arms through these very woods, become,—while I was so busy ploughing the wide ocean, that I observed not the lapse of time,—a full-grown, fashionable, awe-inspiring woman!—when this surprise is over, I say, you will find that I shall learn to behave myself with all due propriety, and not stare grownup young ladies out of countenance, as if they were still children.”
Julia, remembering her resolution, seized this opening, and said, “I hope, Edmund, I shall never prove so much the woman of fashion, as to be capricious or unsisterly, in my manners or conduct. Perhaps you think I have been so?”
“You quite mistake my meaning, Julia,” said Edmund.