It was the evening. Henry Elmore was in his little study, and his wife had taken a book in her hand, and retired to the mysterious wing of the house where her sister knew she always spent an hour every morning and evening, though for what purpose she had never inquired, perceiving that Lucy desired the object of these visits to be secret.
Jessy was seated alone in the parlor we have described. She had drawn near the table, and bending over a volume of poetry which lay open before her. One fair hand was engaged in playing with the ringlets of her hair, and the other lay upon the classic page. The fire had given a slight flush to her cheeks, usually perhaps a shade too pale; and, as she sat thus, it would have been difficult to imagine a more beautiful object. Sea and land might have been searched, and they would have produced nothing half so interesting or half so lovely.
A slight knock at the door interrupted her reading, and a young man of polished manners and handsome exterior presented himself. The new comer was about five-and-twenty, in a military undress, and bearing in his manner and looks a good deal of the martial profession. Notwithstanding the great change which the lapse from youth to manhood makes in his sex, it would not have been difficult for any who had known him in the former period, to trace in the countenance of the visiter the lineaments of his boyhood. There was the same brow, surmounted by its chestnut curls—the latter, it may be, a shade darker and a fold thicker; there was the same hazel eye, with its peculiarly thoughtful expression, and a lip which had preserved the native frankness of its smile. In short, the person entering was—but, reader, we will not anticipate Jessy Ellet in calling him by name.
She seemed slightly startled on recognizing him, but rose with a blush and extended her hand. No hue of rising or setting day was ever so lovely in the eyes of the young man as that blush was in his recollection, nor ever did enthusiastic visionary or poetic dreamer discover so many fanciful forms in the clouds.
He advanced and took her offered hand with more of tenderness than courtesy in his manner, for he held it a moment ere he resigned it.