"I did see you, dear mother, but I was afraid to speak."
"Afraid to speak! Oh! you were afraid of waking Nathaniel?"
"No! no! I was frightened at the appearance of your companion in the garden."
"My companion in the garden! my poor child, you must indeed have dreamed; I had no companion in the garden."
Mr. Fairfax coming in at this moment, Virginia hastily took her chair at the head of the table, and busily commenced her duties at the table, her thoughts all the while occupied upon any thing else.
"What a strange being is that Recluse," said Mr. Fairfax, with apparent non chalance, "have you ever seen him, my dear?" addressing his wife.
Virginia dropped the plate she was in the act of handing to her father and was seized with, to her parents, the most unaccountable embarrassment. She endeavoured to make some excuse in order, as she supposed, to hide her mother's inevitable confusion. But the latter calmly replied, "No, my dear, I have never seen him. I have always had some curiosity to behold him, but now that he has proved himself such a public benefactor, I shall not be satisfied till the wish is gratified. Nathaniel had before excited us much by his account of him, but now I suppose the whole city will be eager to pay him their respects."
Virginia stared at her mother during this speech in the most undisguised astonishment, until she saw the calm serenity of her countenance—the expression of truth and sincerity, which had never deceived her, so strongly portrayed there, when she was again lost in bewilderment, which lasted throughout the meal. Her parents, however, were too much engaged with their own subject of discourse to observe her unusual abstraction, and the meal therefore and the dialogue came to a close without any farther development pertaining to our narrative.