"I have often crossed the ocean, and, for so young a man, have seen a full share of their societies. Perhaps it increases my interest in your lovely kinswoman, that, like myself, she properly belongs to neither." "Be cautious how you whisper that in her ear, my youthful friend; for Eve Effingham fancies herself as much American in character as in birth. Single-minded and totally without management,--devoted to her duties,--- religious without cant,--a warm friend of liberal institutions, without the slightest approach to the impracticable, in heart and soul a woman, you will find it hard to persuade her, that with all her practice in the world, and all her extensive attainments, she is more than a humble copy of heir own great _beau ideal_." Paul smiled, and his eyes met those of John Effingham--the expression of both satisfied the parties that they thought alike in more things than in their common admiration of the subject of their discourse. "I feel I have not been as explicit as I ought to be with you, Mr. Effingham," the young, man resumed, after a pause; "but on a more fitting occasion, I shall presume on your kindness to be less reserved. My lot has thrown me on the world, almost without friends, quite without relatives, so far as intercourse with them is concerned; and I have known little of the language or the acts of the affections." John Effingham pressed his hand, and from that time he cautiously abstained from any allusion to his personal concerns; for a suspicion crossed his mind that the subject was painful to the young man. He knew that thousands of well-educated and frequently of affluent people, of both sexes, were to be found in Europe, to whom, from the circumstance of having been born out of wedlock, through divorces, or other family misfortunes, their private histories were painful, and he at once inferred that some such event, quite probably the first, lay at the bottom of Paul Blunt's peculiar situation. Notwithstanding his warm attachment to Eve, he had too much confidence in her own as well as in her father's judgment, to suppose an acquaintance of any intimacy would be lightly permitted; and as to the mere prejudices connected with such subjects, he was quite free from them. Perhaps his masculine independence of character caused him, on all such points, to lean to the side of the _ultra_ in liberality.