How sweetly the little gipsy looked, with her habit of dark green, her tiny while collar, and her black velvet hat and plume. Before James could present his hand, she sprung into her saddle, and cantered off with such speed that he put spurs to his horse to overtake her. The woods were gorgeous with beauty. Summer still lingered in the tender green of some trees, while others, tinted by the bold hand of autumn, towered in all the pomp of scarlet and yellow foliage. The crisp leaves rustled to the tread of their horses’ hoofs, and the soft breeze that swept over golden meadow and sunny hill, came laden to their young hearts with those sweet, vague reveries that visit the soul but once—but once!—in that untried season of youth when the earth seems starred with flowers, the sea mirrors naught but heaven, and the very consciousness of animal life is happiness. For some time the youthful pair rode on in silence, till at length emerging from the shady woods they came suddenly to an opening, where a grassy slope led down to the river, and to the spot which some months before had been the scene of Ada’s misfortune.
“Oh, how beautiful!” exclaimed she, as she drew in her rein to look around. The turf was still bright with sunshine—the waters sparkled as if they had stolen the golden bed of the Pactolus—and above them, forever changing shape and hue, floated the silver clouds that hide from mortal gaze the home of Immortality!
“Beautiful!” was the response of her companion.
“Did you ever see such a bright sky!” continued the delighted child of nature. “And such a soft green turf, which, by the bye, Lightfoot is enjoying in his way—see, James, how nicely he crops the grass in a circle. Do you remember the story of the Dervise and the stray Camel? How he not only knew him to be astray, but found out that he was blind of one eye, lame in one leg, had lost a tooth, and was loaded with corn and honey, and all without having seen him? What a curious observer he must have been, that dervise!”
No answer was vouchsafed to this piece of Oriental lore, whose connection with Lightfoot’s skill in cropping grass was somewhat unintelligible to one who had not read the story; so Ada broke into new raptures over the beauty of the river.
This time James looked up, and gazed earnestly at her varying and animated countenance. “That stream had nearly wedded us, Ada.”
Ada tossed her pretty little head as she replied, “I am glad that I escaped such an ugly bridal.”
“Pshaw!” thought James, “she is but a child, and does not understand me.”
And he was quite right; for while he was perfectly aware of his being “in love,” Ada was utterly ignorant of the meaning of the phrase. All she knew was that James Darrington’s presence materially increased her happiness; but she would not have confessed to the very reeds and rushes that she liked him even more than she did her dear Catharine. Her wise and gentle mother, aware that her little daughter was in an Eden of ignorant bliss, prudently forbore to tender her the fruit of precocious wisdom. She knew that Ada was as childish as became her years, and she judged it best to leave that little heart undisturbed by knowledge of the good and evil of artificial life.
James, on the contrary, though he ventured no more declarations to the lady of his thoughts, indemnified himself for the same, by pouring out his ecstasies into his mother’s ear. Mrs. Darrington was something more than amused with this juvenile courtship; she was delighted to be the recipient of her son’s confessions: too well skilled in the human heart to repulse his confidence by ridicule, she contented herself with reminding him that to win Ada he must deserve her. So, the course of Mr. James Darrington’s true love ran on, for a while, without a ripple.