Poca favilla gran Fiamma seconda. Dante.
When Ada Somers was a romp of twelve years, she chanced one day, in too bold a search for some water-lilies, to fall headlong into the stream from whose blue depths they lifted their pretty heads.
Truth alone compels us to relate this mishap of Ada’s: for although the quasi drowning of heroines has been a popular tableau of romance ever since streams and heroines were; still, this is the era of investigation; and we who on our railroads outstrip the speed of the bronze horse—we for whom the delicate and trembling wires of the telegraph do the office of a thousand Ariels—we who have called upon the sun to be our portrait-painter, and upon the moon to yield up her secrets that our lecture-rooms may be crowed; surely we have some right to think for ourselves! and we boldly proclaim that nothing can be less sublime and more ridiculous than the loss of one’s equilibrium—a plunge head-foremost—and the spectacle of two inverted feet without any apparent body.
Perhaps that sometime race of heroines, who wandered up hill and down dale in satin slippers—unsoiled—undraggled—and unscratched—and wept without the concomitants of red eyes and swelled noses; perhaps a race of such curious physiological construction possessed also the secret of losing their balance without losing their grace. But our poor Ada was not of this race: she was only a little American girl, subject to the laws of gravitation, so she fell into the river in the manner above described. Poor little thing! she might have floated off to keep company with Glendower’s spirits in the vasty deep, but for the timely interposition of a certain youth, by name James Darrington. James was taking his afternoon ride along the river-bank, when he heard a sudden splash, and turned his eyes just in time to catch a view of the two little feet above-mentioned. He was not, like the Countess Hahn-Hahn, versed in the physiognomy of feet, so without venturing a guess as to the ownership of the pair in question, he sprung from his horse and plunged into the river.
The spot where Ada had fallen was deep, and its bed was a mass of treacherous slime; but James was a bold swimmer, and after some moments of struggle, ay, and of danger too, he succeeded in bearing his prize to the shore.
Now, as Ada was no heroine, she did not emerge from the river like a water-nymph: her faithful chronicler is fain to say that her dress was a net-work of slimy weeds; that her hair was tangled, and her face dirty. Nevertheless, she was a pretty little thing in spite of her draggled condition, and when James went home and thought over the matter, he felt bound by the chivalry of fifteen to fall in love with her, and he did so. To be sure, he had passed Ada Somers a hundred times, in his father’s house and at hers, without bestowing a thought upon her—but now that Destiny had thrown her into his arms, he saw that her hazel eyes were starry with brightness—that her rosy mouth was the nest of all the loves—and he resolved to keep her where she was.
Up to the day of her mishap, Ada had never thought of any thing more sentimental than skipping-ropes, pet fawns and ponies—but she suddenly became addicted to solitary walking, wild-flowers and moonlight. (N. B. These tastes lasted for about a week.) And instead of scampering over the country with a servant behind her, her pony Lightfoot roamed his paddock in lazy leisure, unless James Darrington was at liberty to accompany Lightfoot’s mistress in her ride.
James, though only fifteen, was so accomplished a horseman that Ada’s parents had no hesitation in committing her to his care. They were often joined in their rides by Ada’s favorite playmate, Catharine Ashton; but sometimes they rode alone, and although these rides were generally silent ones, still James thought them pleasanter when Catharine’s merry voice was not constantly challenging them to some childish feat, or making the woods ring with its bursts of glee.
“I hope I shall have her to myself to-day,” thought he, as he rode up the oak avenue to Mr. Somers’ house. Yes, there was Lightfoot pawing the ground alone—and no Catharine trying Fenella feats—cracking her riding-whip, and breaking the luxurious silence of his reveries with her ceaseless mirth.
James threw himself from his horse, rushed up the steps of the portico, and just as he was stammering an apology to Mrs. Somers for nearly upsetting her as she advanced to greet him, Ada came out equipped for her ride.