Tales for Fifteen; Or, Imagination and Heart — John Shaqi
Tales for Fifteen; Or, Imagination and HeartCooper, James Fenimore
General
Tales for Fifteen; Or, Imagination and Heart
Cooper, James Fenimore
Girls -- Conduct of life -- Juvenile fiction; New York (N.Y.) -- Juvenile fiction
hero, that no envious tongue may probe the secrets
of our love, nor any profane scoffer ridicule those
sensitive pleasures that he is too unsentimental to
enjoy." With these, and similar thoughts, did Julia
occupy herself, until Charles pointed out to her the
majestic entrance to the Highlands. Our heroine,
who was truly alive to all the charms of nature,
gazed with rapture as the boat plunged between
the mountains on either hand, and turned a wistful
gaze down the river, in the vain hope that Antonio
might, at the same moment, be enjoying the
scene--but the sluggish sloop was now far behind,
and the eye of Antonio, bright as it was, could not
pierce the distance. Julia felt rather relieved than
otherwise, when the vessel which contained her
hero was hid from view by a mountain that they
doubled. Her feelings were much like those of a girl
who had long anxiously waited the declaration of a
favourite youth, had received it, and acknowledged
her own partiality. She felt all the assurance of her
conquest, and would gladly, for a time, avoid the
shame of her own acknowledgment. The passage up
the Hudson furnishes in itself so much to charm the
eye of a novice, that none but one under the
extraordinary circumstances of our heroine, could
have beheld the beauties of the river unmoved. If
Julia did not experience quite as much rapture in
the journey as she had anticipated, she attributed
it to the remarkably delicate situation she was in
with her lover, and possibly to a dread of his being
detected. An officer of his rank and reputation must
be well known, thought she, and he may meet with
acquaintances every where. However, by the
attention of Charles, she passed the day with a
very tolerable proportion of pleasure. Their arrival
at Albany was undistinguished by any remarkable
event, though Julia looked in vain through the
darkness of the night, in quest of the fertile
meadows and desert islands which Anna had
mentioned in her letter. Even the river seemed
straight and uninteresting. But Julia was tired--it
was night--and Antonio was absent.
The following morning Miss Emmerson and her
niece, attended by Charles, took a walk to examine
the beauties of Albany. It did not strike our heroine
as being so picturesque as it had her friend; still it
had novelty, and that lent it many charms it might
have wanted on a more intimate acquaintance.
Their forenoon, however, exhausted the beauties of
this charming town, and they had returned to the
inn, and the ladies were sitting in rather a listless
state when Charles entered the room with a look of
pleasure, and cried "he is here."
"Who!" exclaimed Julia, starting, and trembling like
an aspen.
"He!--Tony," said Charles, in reply.
Julia was unable to say any more; but her aunt,
without noticing her agitation, asked mildly, "And
who is Tony?"
"Why Anthony, the driver--he is here and wishes to
see you."
"Show him up, Charles, and let us learn when he
will be ready to go on."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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