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. CHAPTER II. Oh! how this Spring of Love resembleth The uncertain glory of an April day. TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA. Some months again passed away, when, one morning, as James was about to leave the breakfast-room, he saw his mother suddenly put down an open letter, which she had been reading, and turn to his father with an exclamation—“Minister to France, William! Is this a stroke of Fortune or of _Mis_fortune?” “Such a question,” replied Mr. Darrington, “requires no answer. Whatever my appointment be to me, to you, I see that it is misfortune. But you are a woman, and therefore a stranger to the pleasures of ambition.” “And to its pains,” said the wife quietly. “Then from you,” resumed Mr. D., with a shade of vexation in his tone—“from you I may expect no congratulation. Have you no pride in such a mark of confidence to me from my country?” “If by ‘your country’ you mean, as I suppose you do, your government, I fear that I am not to be any more elated by its confidence than depressed by its distrust. And besides,” continued she fondly, “my pride in you, William, is of too old a date to be increased by political success.” The husband smiled, as what husband would not, to so flattering a declaration.