Evadne

“ Oars were dipped in the smooth sea, and an eager crowd stood waiting to visit the exiles on the once dreaded island. Evadne was already missed. Again and again voices called upon her, the echoes repeated the sound, and the groves had but one voice,—"Evadne!" She stirred not at the sound, but her smile grew sweeter, and her brow paler, and cold as the marble hand that pressed it.
Oh, Alpheus! oh, Eleusa! chide not! you will be weeping soon! She has, indeed, angered you of late. ”

“ Evadne rose also with a heavy sigh. "I know how you feel," she said to Edith drearily. "You glow and are glad from morning till night. You have a great yearning here," she clasped her hands to her breast. "You find a new delight in music, a new beauty in flowers; unaccountable joy in the warmth and brightness of the sun, and rapture not to be contained in the quiet moonlight. You despise yourself, and think your lover worthy of adoration. The consciousness of him never leaves you even in your sleep. He is your last thought at night, your first in the morning. ”

“ When Evadne returned to Alpheus and to her foster-mother, she was silent concerning her discovery, and it seemed the more sweet to her for being secret. Her thoughts made pilgrimages to the temple hidden by the laurels once set to adorn it, and the deserted God of Youth and Immortal Beauty drew from her an untaught and voiceless worship. ”

“ In looking back now, I am inclined to ask why we, Evadne's intimate friends, should always have expected more of her than we did of other people. That certainly was the case, and she disappointed us. We felt that she should have been a representative woman such as the world wants at this period of its progress, making a name for herself and an impression on the age; and it was probably her objection, expressed with quite passionate earnestness, to play a part in which we gathered from many chance indications that she was eminently qualified to have excelled, that constituted the puzzle. ”

“ Everidge lifted her face tenderly and kissed the quivering lips. "It is 'not I but Christ,' dear child. That makes it possible." Then she drew her over to the lounge and began to undress her as if she had been a baby. "My dear little sister. You are utterly exhausted. You are not strong enough to suffer so."
"Oh, will you let me be your sister and help you bear your burdens?" cried Evadne, unconscious that all the time the skilful hands were keeping up their sweet ministry and that her burden was being lifted for her by the one who had the greater burden to bear. ”

“ Edith stared at her. That Evadne should know the entrancement of love herself so exactly, and not reverence it as holy, amazed her.
"And you call it love," Evadne added, as if she had read her thought; "but it is not love. The threshold of love and hate adjoin, and it—this feeling—stands midway between them, an introduction to either. It is always a question, as marriages are now made, whether, when passion has had time to cool, husband and wife will love or detest each other. ”

“ Evadne said. "I have been thinking of you the whole day long. I always keep all the birthdays. Did you remember mine?"
"I—don't think I did," he answered honestly. "But this is my twenty-first birthday, Evadne, and that's how it is I am here. I am my own master from to-day."
"And the first thing you do with your liberty is to come and see your sister," said Colonel Colquhoun. "You're made of the right stuff, my boy," and he shook hands with him heartily. ”

“ Mrs. Beston joined her. She was a little dark woman with a patient anxious face, and eyes that wandered incessantly till she discovered her husband with Mrs. Guthrie Brimston. Evadne surprised the glance—entreating, reproachful, loving, helpless—what was it? The look of a woman who finds it a relief to know the worst. Evadne's heart began to contract; the girlish gladness went out of her eyes.
Mrs. Beale and Edith arrived and joined her, and Menteith came and attached himself to them at once. ”

“ Truth and falsehood, love and hate lost their eternal boundaries, heaven rushed in to mingle with hell; while his sensitive mind, turned to a field for such battle, was stung to madness. He heartily despised himself, he was angry with Perdita, and the idea of Evadne was attended by all that was hideous and cruel. His passions, always his masters, acquired fresh strength, from the long sleep in which love had cradled them, the clinging weight of destiny bent him down; he was goaded, tortured, fiercely impatient of that worst of miseries, the sense of remorse. ”

“ He knew the strength of her convictions, knew that, so long as they were a few yards apart, she could always have ruled both herself and him; and life is lived a few yards apart. It was the best side of his nature that was under Evadne's influence and he had now some saving grace of manhood in him, which enabled him to appreciate the esteem with which she had begun to repay his consideration for her, and to admire the consistent self-respect which had brought her triumphantly out of all her difficulties, and won her a distinguished position in the place. ”

“ Evadne sat silent, and smiled at their chatter with the air of one who has solved the problem and knows. But she was glad to be rid of them, and when they had gone, she got her sacred "Commonplace Book," and glanced through it dreamily. Then, rousing herself a little, she went to her writing table, and sat down and wrote: "This is the close of the happiest girlhood that girl ever had. ”

“ Evadne asked.
"Yes—greatest human happiness," her aunt replied.
"Well, I don't know how that can be dangerous in principle. But, of course, I know nothing of such questions practically. Only I do seem to perceive that you must rest on a solid basis of real advantages before you can reach up to ideal perfection with any chance of success."
"You seem to be very wide awake to-night, Evadne," Mrs. Orton Beg rejoined. ”

“ We shall be 'together,'—we have that comfort given us, but it will be 'together with the Lord.' He is to be the centre of attraction and delight always. What an unfathomable mystery it must be to the angels that he is not so with us now!"
Evadne took a long, yearning look at the dear face, as if she would imprint it upon her memory forever. "He is with you," she said softly. "You will never be a puzzle to the angels." ”

“ The air had grown oppressively sultry; no breath of wind stirred the heavily drooping leaves, no sound except the rhythmic splash of the fountain and the soft lapping of the waves upon the beach. He closed his eyes while their ceaseless monotone seemed to beat upon his brain.
"Forever! Forever! Forever!"
A spasm of pain crossed his face as Evadne's voice woke the echoes with a merry song. "Poor little lass!" he murmured. Then he smiled as she came towards him, quaffed off the beverage she had prepared with loving skill, and called her the best cook in all the Indies. ”

“ He is very handsome, every inch a soldier, and an Irishman, with all an Irishman's brightness and wit, and altogether the most taking manners. I tell Evadne I am quite in love with him myself! He is a thoroughly good Churchman too, which is a great blessing—never misses a service, and it is a beautiful sight to see him kneeling beside Evadne as rapt and intent as she is. He was rather wild as a young man, I am sorry to say, but he has been quite frank about all, that to Mr. Frayling, and there is nothing now that we can object to. ”

“ Evadne exclaimed, clenching her hands. "Now that you are a man, never let mother be made miserable. Did she know you were coming?"
"Yes, and was very glad," he answered, "and sent you messages."
But here Colonel Colquhoun and I managed to slip from the room. Evadne sent her brother back that day to grace the close of the festivities in his honour, but he returned the following week, and stayed at As-You-Like-It, and also with me, when he confirmed my first exceedingly good impression of him. ”

“ His name as Protector was the burthen of every tongue; his achievements, projects, and magnificence, the argument of every story. Nothing is so precious to a woman’s heart as the glory and excellence of him she loves; thus in every horror Evadne revelled in his fame and prosperity. While her husband lived, this feeling was regarded by her as a crime, repressed, repented of. When he died, the tide of love resumed its ancient flow, it deluged her soul with its tumultuous waves, and she gave herself up a prey to its uncontrollable power. ”

“ You need not be in the least anxious about Evadne. She is quite well, has an excellent appetite, and is not at all inclined to pose as a martyr. I confess I should have thought myself she would have suffered more in the first days of her disillusion, for she certainly was very much in love with Major Colquhoun; but her principles are older than her acquaintance with him, and ingrained principle is a force superior to passion, it seems—which is as it should be. ”

“ I am afraid Evadne will come into collision with some of the prejudices of our enlightened neighbourhood. She is not perfect, and nothing but perfection is good enough for certain angelic women of our acquaintance. They will call her very character in question at the trial tribunals of their tea-tables if she be, as I think, of the kind who cause comment; and they will throw stones at her and make her suffer even if they do her no permanent injury. ”

“ Man, the unjust and iniquitous, was to her always the outside, vague, theoretical man of the world, never the dear undoubted papa at home.
Evadne was the eldest of six girls, and their mother had a comfortable as-it-was-in-the-beginning-is-now-and-ever-shall-be feeling about them all; but she prided herself most upon Evadne as answering in every particular to the conventional idea of what a young lady should be.
"The dear child," she wrote to Lady Adeline, "is all and more than we dared to hope to have her become. ”

“ No wonder we are not missed, when we drop out of the babbling conglomerate of humanity into silence," he added bitterly. "Who would miss a single pair of fins from amidst a shoal of herring!"
"I think it is because Doctor Randolph is not content to float, Louis," Evadne answered gently. "He must always be climbing higher. Like Paul, he is 'pressing towards the mark.'"
"He is a grand fellow! And the beauty of it is he never seems to think of himself at all. Most men would get to be top-lofty if they accomplished as much as he does every day."
Evadne's lips parted in a happy smile. ”

“ I heard Evadne laugh very soon after his arrival, and could see that "the worry in her head," as she described it, had gone again, and was forgotten. The impulse, which would have robbed me of all my happiness and hopes had she succeeded in carrying it out, never cost her a thought. The saving suffering of an agony of remorse was what we should like to have seen, for in that there would have been good assurance of healthy moral consciousness restored. ”

“ Evadne answered. "But I cannot read to the children until after their tea. They were at their lessons this morning, and we are all going out this afternoon." She had neither forgotten the children nor the time they wanted their book, which was eminently characteristic. She never did forget other people's interests, however much she might be absorbed by the pleasure of her own pursuits. ”

“ CHAPTER IV. It is interesting to trace the steps by which Evadne advanced: one item of knowledge accidentally acquired compelling her to seek another, as in the case of some disease mentioned in a story-book, the nature of which she could not comprehend without studying the construction of the organ it affected. But haphazard seems to have determined her pursuits much more than design as a rule. Some people in after life, who liked her views, said they saw the guiding hand of Providence directing her course from the first ”

“ John was one of the friends who very much deprecated Evadne's attitude at this time. He did not speak to her himself, being diffident and delicate, but he went to Mr. Price, who was, he knew, quite in her confidence.
"You have influence with her, do restrain her;" he said. "No good is done by making herself the subject of common gossip."
"My dear fellow," Mr. Price replied, "she is quite irresponsible. Certain powers of perception have developed in her to a point beyond that which has been reached by the people about her, and she is forced to act up to what she perceives to be right. ”

“ How did Evadne get them? he wanted to know. Mrs. Frayling could not conceive. She had forgotten all about Evadne's discovery of the box of books in the attic, and the sort of general consent she had given when Evadne worried her for permission to read them.
"She must be a most deceitful girl. I shall go and talk to her myself,"
Mr. Frayling concluded.
And doubtless, if only he had had a pair of wings to spread, he would presently have appeared sailing over the cathedral into the Close at Morningquest, a portly bird, in a frock coat, tall hat, and a very bad temper. ”

“ He did not understand Evadne. He had no conception of the human possibility of anything so perfect as her self-control; and when she showed no feeling, he took it for granted that it was because she had none. But during the games next day he obtained a glimpse of her heart which surprised him. ”

“ Evadne compressed her lips in steady disapproval. "I should think only of his future. I should forgive the past."
"That is the mistake you good women all make," said Evadne. "You set a detestably bad example. So long as women like you will forgive anything, men will do anything. You have it in your power to set up a high standard of excellence for men to reach in order to have the privilege of associating with you. There is this quality in men, that they will have the best of everything; and if the best wives are only to be obtained by being worthy of them, they will strive to become so. ”