better: she seized a rake, and, approaching as near to the moat as she could, literally hooked him into shallow water, whence he was enabled to gain the terrace, where he stood before her dripping like a river-god, and sputtering thanks and duck-weed in great profusion. Never did human being present a more equivocal appearance than did Alvarez on this occasion, covered as he was with mud and weeds. The damsel, at the sight of him scrambling up the bank, was almost induced to exclaim, with Trinculo, “* What have we here?—a man or a fish?” And indeed, until “‘ the creature found a tongue,” it would have been no easy task for Linneus himself to determine the class of animals to which he belonged. No meeting betwéen fair lady and gallant knight could, by possibility, be more unromantic; nay, ‘twas the most common-place thing conceivable: whatever may have been the cavalier’s sensations, she did ngt fall in love with him; for her first impulse, on seeing him safely landed, was to laugh most incontinently; and love, as my friend the corporal hath it, is “the most serious thing in life.”
“I pray you, senora,” said Alvarez, as soon as he recovered himself, “to accept my humblest apologies for intruding upon you so extraordinary an apparition.”
“Apparition!—nay, senor, you are encumbered somewhat too pertinaciously, methinks, with the imparities of earth to be mistaken for any thing of the kind; unless you lay claim to the spiritual character on the score of your intangibility, which I have not the slightest inclination to dispute: and as for your apologies, you had better render them to those unoffending fishes whose peaceful retrea’ you have so unceremoniously invaded; for you have raised a tempest where, to my certain knowledge, there has not been a ripple for these twelve months.”
“Indeed, fair lady, owe them no apologies, since, but for you, I had been their feod. Yon moat, although not wide enough to swim in, possesses marvellous facilities for drowning.”
At this instant the merchant himself entered the grounds, and approached the scene of the interview. His daughter immediately introduced her unbidden guest. “Allow me, my dear papa, to present to vou a gentleman who brings with him the latest intelligence from the bottom of the moat. Behold him dripping with his credentials, and the bearer of a specimen of the soil and a few aequatic plants peculiar to the region he has explored, and of which, having landed on your territories, he politely requests you to relieve him.”
“You area saucy jade,” said the merchant; “and, but that I know your freaks ever stop short of actual mischief, I could almost suspect you of having pushed him in.”
“Nay, papa, that could not be; we were on opposite sides of the moat.”
“You forget, lady,” rejoined the cavalier, who began to recover his spirits, that attraction is often as powerful an agent as repulsion, amd that therefore your father’s conjecture as to the cause of my misfortune may not be altogether groundless.”
“I beseech you, senor,” said the daughter, “to reserve your compliments for your next visit to the Naiads of the moat, to whom they are more justly due, and cannot fail to be acceptable from a gentleman of your amphibious propensities. I hope our domestics will be careful in divesting you of that plaster of mud:—I should like the cast amazingly.”
During this colloquy the party were approaching the mansion, where Alvarez was accommodated with a temporary change of attire; and it is certain that if the damsel was not captivated by his first appearance, her heart was still less in danger when she beheld him encased in her father’s habiliments—“a world too wide” for him —the merchant being somewhat of the stoutest, while the fair proportions of his guest were not encumbered with any exuberance of flesh.
Thus originated the acquaintance of Mr. Wentworth and his fair daughter with the most gallant of all Portuguese cavaliers, Alvarez de Rameiro; an acquaintance which, as their amiable qualities mutually developed themselves, ripened into friendship. Alvarez exhibited a frankness of manner which never bordered upon rudeness and was equally remote from asst- rance; while the liberality of his opinions indicated an elevation of mind that the bigotry amid which he had been educated had not been able to overthrow. These qualities well accorded with the straight-forward disposition of the Englishman, who probably found them scarce-in Lisbon, and rendered the society of the young foreigner more than ordinarily agreeable to him.
It happened, one afternoon in the summer, that the merchant and Alvarez were enjoying their glass of wine and cigar, while Mary Wentworth was attending to some plants in a grass-plot before the window. Mr. Wentworth had told his last story, which was rather of the longest; but as his notions of hospitality, in furnishing his table, included conversation as well as refection, he made a point of keeping it up, and, with this general object rather than any particular one— for he had great simplicity of heart—he filled his glass, and passing the decanter to his guest, resumed the conversation : “It has occurred to me, Alvarez, that your attentions to my Mary have been somewhat pointed of late—fill your glass, man, and don’t keep your hand on the bottle; it heats the wine.”
“Then, sir, my conduct has not belied’my feelings; for I certainly do experience much gratification in Miss Wentworth’s society, and her father is the last person from whom I should desire to conceal it.”
“Then have the kindness to push the cigar- dish. a little nearer, for mine is out.”
“I hope, sir, that my attentions to your daughter have not been offensive to her?”
“Tam sure I don’t know, for I never asked her.”
“Nor to yourself, I trust?”