Various - Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XVI., December, 1880.

Perhaps it was her interview with Captain Triggs, the sight of the wharf and the ships, which took her thoughts back and made them bridge the gulf which divided her past life from her present self. Could the girl she saw in that shadowy past—headstrong, confident, impatient of suffering and unsympathetic with sorrow—be this same Eve who walked along with all hope and thought of self merged in another's happiness and welfare? Where was the vanity, where were the tricks and coquetries, passports to that ideal existence after which in the old days she had so thirsted? Trampled out of sight and choked beneath the fair blossoms of a higher life, which, as in many a human nature, had needed sorrow, humiliation and a great watering of tears before there could spring forth the flowers for a fruit which should one day ripen into great perfection.

No wonder, then, that she should be shaken by a doubt of her own identity; and having reached her room she paused upon the threshold and looked around as if to satisfy herself by all those silent witnesses which made it truth. There was the chair in which she had so often sat plying her needle with such tardy grace while her impatient thoughts did battle with the humdrum, narrow life she led. How she had beat against the fate which seemed to promise naught but that dull round of commonplace events in which her early years had passed away! How as a gall and fret had come the thought of Reuben's proffered love, because it shadowed forth the level of respectable routine, the life she then most dreaded! To be courted and sought after, to call forth love, jealousy and despair, to be looked up to, thought well of, praised, admired,—these were the delights she had craved and these the longings she had had granted. And a sigh from the depths of that chastened heart rendered the bitter tribute paid by all to satiated vanity and outlived desire. The dingy walls, the ill-assorted furniture (her mother's pride in which had sometimes vexed her, sometimes made her laugh) now looked like childhood's friends, whose faces stamp themselves upon our inmost hearts. The light no longer seemed obscure, the room no longer gloomy, for each thing in it now was flooded by the tender light of memory—that wondrous gift to man which those who only sail along life's summer sea can never know in all the heights and depths revealed to storm-tossed hearts.

"What! you've come back?" a voice said in her ear; and looking round Eve saw it was Reuben, who had entered unperceived. "There's nothing fresh gone wrong?" he asked.

"No, nothing;" but the sad smile she tried to give him welcome with was so akin to tears that Reuben's face assumed a look of doubt. "'Tis only that I'm thinking how I'm changed from what I was," said Eve. "Why, once I couldn't bear this room and all the things about it; but now—Oh, Reuben, my heart seems like to break because perhaps 'twill soon now come to saying good-bye to all of it for ever."

Reuben winced: "You're fixed to go, then?"

"Yes, where Adam goes I shall go too: don't you think I should? What else is left for me to do?"

"You feel, then, you'd be happy—off with him—away from all and—everybody else?"

"Happy! Should I be happy to know he'd gone alone—happy to know I'd driven him away to some place where I wouldn't go myself?" and Eve paused, shaking her head before she added, "If he can make another start in life—try and begin again—"

"You ought to help him to it," said Reuben promptly: "that's very plain to see. Oh, Eve, do you mind the times when you and me have talked of what we'd like to do—how, never satisfied with what went on around, we wanted to be altogether such as some of those we'd heard and read about? The way seems almost opened up to you, but what shall I do when all this is over and you are gone away? I can't go back and stick to trade again, working for nothing more but putting victuals in myself."

For a moment Eve did not speak: then, with a sudden movement, she turned, saying to Reuben, "There's something that before our lives are at any moment parted I've wanted to say to you, Reuben. 'Tis that until now, this time while we've been all together here, I've never known what your worth is—what you would be to any one who'd got the heart to value what you'd give. Of late it has often seemed that I should think but very small of one who'd had the chance of your liking and yet didn't know the proper value of such goodness."

Reuben gave a look of disavowal, and Eve continued, adding with a little hesitation, "You mustn't think it strange in me for saying this. I couldn't tell you if you didn't know how everything lies between Adam and myself; but ever since this trouble's come about all my thoughts seem changed, and people look quite different now to what they did before; and, most of all, I've learnt to know the friend I've got, and always had, in you, Reuben."

Reuben did not answer for a moment. He seemed struggling to keep back something he was yet prompted to speak of. "Eve," he said at length, "don't think that I've not made mistakes, and great ones too. When first I fought to battle down my leaning toward you, why was it? Not because of doubting that 'twould ever be returned, but 'cos I held myself too good a chap in all my thoughts and ways to be taken up with such a butterfly concern as I took you to be. I'd never have believed then that you'd have acted as I've seen you act. I thought that love with you meant who could give you the finest clothes to wear and let you rule the roast the easiest; but you have shown me that you are made of better woman's stuff than that. And, after all, a man thinks better of himself for mounting high than stooping to pick up what can be had for asking any day."

"No, no, Reuben: your good opinion is more than I deserve," said Eve, her memory stinging her with past recollections. "If you want to see a dear, kind-hearted, unselfish girl, wait until Joan comes. I do so hope that you will take to her! I think you will, after what you've been to Jerrem and to Adam. I want you and Joan to like each other."

"I don't think there's much fear of that," said Reuben. "Jerrem's spoke so freely about Joan that I seem to know her before ever having seen her. Let me see: her mind was at one time set on Adam, wasn't it?"

"I think that she was very fond of Adam," said Eve, coloring: "and, so far as that goes, I don't know that there is any difference now. I'm sure she'd lay her life down if it would do him good."

"Poor soul!" sighed Reuben, drawn by a friendly feeling to sympathize with Joan's unlucky love. "Her cup's been full, and no mistake, of late."

"Did Jerrem seem to feel it much that Uncle Zebedee 'd been took so strange?" asked Eve.

"I didn't tell him more than I could help," said Reuben. "As much as possible I made it out to him that for the old man to come to London wouldn't be safe, and the fear of that seemed to pacify him at once."

"I haven't spoken of it to Adam yet," said Eve. "He hasn't asked about his coming, so I thought I'd leave the telling till another time. His mind seems set on nothing but getting off, and by it setting Jerrem free."

But Reuben made no rejoinder to the questioning tone of Eve's words, and after a few minutes' pause he waived the subject by reverting to the description which Eve had given of Joan, so that, in case he had to meet her alone, he might recognize her without difficulty. Eve repeated the description, dwelling with loving preciseness on the various features and points by which Joan might be known; and then Reuben, having some work to do, got up to say good-bye.

"Good-bye," said Eve, holding out her hand—"good-bye. Every time I say it now I seem to wonder if 'tis to be good-bye indeed."

"Why, no: in any way, you'd wait until the trial was over?"

"Yes, I forgot: of course we should."