“Well, Clayton, we may make up our minds for it now”.
“For what, I should like to know? Who cares for that interloping, beetroot–coloured muff”?
“He is no muff at all, I can tell you, but an exceedingly clever man. Do you mean to say you donʼt know him”?
“Not I, from Esau or Ishmael. And he looks like a mixture of both”.
“He is Doctor Rufus Hutton”.
Clayton indulged in a very long whistle, indrawn, and not melodious. ’Twas a trick he had learned at Oxford; it has long been discarded elsewhere, but at both Universities still subsists, as the solace of newly–plucked men; the long–drawn sound seems to wind so soothingly down the horns of dilemma. Then the youth jumped up, and gathered a nut, cracked it between his white front teeth, and offered it, husk and all, without any thought of hygrometry, to his beautiful frightened darling. She took it, as if his wife already, and picked out the thin shell, piece by piece, anxiously seeking the kernel. He all the while with admiration watched the delicate fingers moving, the reflex play of the lissome joints, the spiral thread and varying impress of the convex tips, and the faintly flushing pink beneath the transparency of her nails. Then she laughed and jumped, as it proved to be a magnificent double nut—two fat kernels close together, shaped by one another. Of course she gave him one, and of course we know what they did about it. I will only state that they very soon forgot all about Dr. Rufus Hutton, and could scarcely part where the last branch–path was quite near to the maidenʼs window. Even there, where the walks divided, when neither could see the other, each stepped aside, very proud of loveʼs slyness, to steal the last of the otherʼs footfall; and soon, with a blush of intuition, each knew that the other was lingering, and each felt ashamed of himself or herself, and loved the other all the more for it. So they broke from the bushes, detected and laughing, to put a good face upon it, and each must go to tell the other how it came about. They kissed once more, for they felt it was right now that the moon was risen; then home ran both, with a warmth of remembrance and hope glowing in the heart.
CHAPTER XI.
Whatever the age, or the intellect of the passing age, may be, even if ever arise again such a galaxy of great minds as dawned upon this country three hundred years ago, though all those great minds start upon their glorious career, comprising and intensifying all the light engendered by, before, and since the time of Shakespeare, Bacon, Newton; then, though they enhance that light tenfold by their own bright genius, till a thousand waking nations gleam, like hill–tops touched with sunrise—to guide men on the human road, to lead them heaven–ward, all shall be no more than a benighted river wandering away from the stars of God. Do what we will, and think as we may, enlarging the mind in each generation, growing contemptuous of contempt, casting caste to the winds of heaven, and antiquating prejudice, nevertheless we shall never outrun, or even overtake Christianity. Science, learning, philosophy, may regard it through a telescope: they touch it no more than astronomy sets foot upon a star. To a thoughtful man, who is scandalized at all the littleness felt and done under the holy name, until he almost begins to doubt if the good outweigh the evil, it is reassurance to remember that we are not Christians yet, and comfort to confess that on earth we never can be. For nothing shows more clearly that our faith is of heaven, than the truth that we cannot rise to it until it raise us thither. And this reflection is akin to the stately writerʼs sentiment, that our minds conceive so much more than our bodies can perform, to give us token, ay, and earnest, of a future state.