"It may be,"
thought Evelina, sitting idle over her embroidery with far-away blue
eyes, "that a man's heart can always turn a while from love to other
things as weighty and serious, although he be just as fond, while a
woman's heart is always fixed one way by loving, and cannot be turned
unless it breaks. And it may be wise," thought young Evelina, "else
how could the state be maintained and governed, battles for
independence be fought, and even souls be saved, and the gospel
carried to the heathen, if men could not turn from the concerns of
their own hearts more easily than women? Women should be patient,"
thought Evelina, "and consider that if they suffer 't is due to the
lot which a wise Providence has given them." And yet tears welled up
in her earnest blue eyes and fell over her fair cheeks and wet the
embroidery--when the elder Evelina was not looking, as she seldom
was. The elder Evelina was kind to her young cousin, but there were
days when she seemed to dwell alone in her own thoughts, apart from
the whole world, and she seldom spoke either to Evelina or her old
servant-man.
Young Evelina, trying to atone for her former indiscretion and
establish herself again on her height of maiden reserve in Thomas
Merriam's eyes, sat resolutely in the meeting-house of a Sabbath day,
with her eyes cast down, and after service she glided swiftly down
the aisle and was out of the door before the young minister could
much more than descend the pulpit stairs, unless he ran an indecorous
race.
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