"He took me by the hand, the morning after the marriage, and said, Faithful Ann Sidley, you have nursed and attended my beloved when a child, and as a young lady; and I now entreat you will continue to wait on and serve her as a wife to your dying day. He did, indeed, ma"am; and I think I can now hear the very words he spoke so kindly.
The dream, so far, has come good."
"My faithful Ann," said Paul, smiling, and taking the hand of the nurse, "you have been all that is good and true to my best beloved, as a child, and as a young lady; and now I earnestly entreat you to continue to wait on her, and to serve her as _my_ wife, to your dying day."
Nanny clapped her hands with a scream of delight, and bursting into tears, she exclaimed, as she hurried from the room,
"It has all come true--it has all come true!"
A pause of several minutes succeeded this burst of superst.i.tious but natural feeling.
"All who live near you appear to think you the common centre of their affections," Paul resumed; when his swelling heart permitted him to speak.
"We have hitherto been a family of love--G.o.d grant it may always continue so."
Another delicious silence, which lasted still longer than the other, followed. Eve then looked up into her husband"s face with a gentle curiosity, and observed--
"You have told me a great deal, Powis--explained all but one little thing, that, at the time, caused me great pain. Why did Ducie, when you were about to quit the Montauk together, so unceremoniously stop you, as you were about to get into the boat first; is the etiquette of a man-of-war so rigid as to justify so much rudeness, I had almost called it--?"
"The etiquette of a vessel of war is rigid certainly, and wisely so.
But what you fancied rudeness, was in truth a compliment. Among us sailors, it is the inferior who goes first _into_ a boat, and who _quits_ it last."
"So much, then, for forming a judgment, ignorantly! I believe it is always safer to have no opinion, than to form one without a perfect knowledge of all the accompanying circ.u.mstances."
"Let us adhere to this safe rule through life, dearest, and we may find its benefits. An absolute confidence, caution in drawing conclusions, and a just reliance on each other, may keep us as happy to the end of our married life, as we are at this blessed moment, when it is commencing under auspices so favourable as to seem almost providential."