“Don’t you, indeed! Perhaps I might suggest something?”
“Not for me, Evie,” returned Eunice, good-humoredly. “It will be best for each of us to consult her own taste; and if we do run a little into opposite extremes, it will be no very serious matter.”
Eveline could not but agree with this and so the good-natured contest ended.
The leading traits of character that marked the two sisters, appear, to some extent, in this conversation. Eveline was a gay, high-spirited girl, who was fond of pleasure, and enjoyed, sometimes, even to excess, the privileges afforded by her position; while Eunice was retiring and thoughtful, and took more delight in doing some useful thing, than in dress or fashionable company. But, opposite as were their dispositions, they were tenderly affectionate towards each other, and had been so from childhood.
At the time our story opens, Eveline was twenty, and Eunice in the nineteenth year of her age. For nearly a year, Eveline had been receiving the attentions of a young man named Henry Pascal, son of a wealthy merchant and friend of her father. Pascal was in Europe, where he had been spending some months, and was in familiar correspondence with Eveline. Although no regular engagement had been made, yet it was pretty well understood, in both families, that a marriage between the young couple would take place. Eunice had no acknowledged lover, although many had looked upon her pure young face with loving eyes.
CHAPTER III.
CONFIDENCE IN HUMAN PRUDENCE SHAKEN.
Some things that were said by the minister, came back to the mind of Mr. Townsend, and slightly disturbed it. The possibility that there might be truth in what he had said, was suggested to his thoughts, and he felt fretted at the idea of any Providential interference with his worldly prosperity. He wished to be let alone; and even went so far as to say, mentally, that he considered himself perfectly competent to manage his own affairs. But this state did not remain long. Possession, with him, was nine points of the law, and he meant to retain his advantage.
It happened, not long after, that an arrival from the Pacific brought Mr. Townsend letters from the supercargo of one of his vessels, announcing the loss, in a terrible storm, of a fine ship laden with a return cargo of specie and hides, valued at thirty thousand dollars. She had only been out of Callao two days when the disaster took place. The loss of both ship and cargo, it was feared, would be total.
“By the ships ‘Gelnare’ and ‘Hyperion,’” said one of these letters, “advices in respect to cargo, were sent.”
Unfortunately for Mr. Townsend, neither of these vessels had arrived, and therefore no insurance had been made upon the cargo. They were both telegraphed on the next day, but they came too late. Three weeks elapsed without further intelligence, when the captain and supercargo arrived, bringing news of the entire wreck of the vessel and loss of the cargo.