ontinue 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 superstitious 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--God 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 circumstances."

"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."

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