Oh! how have I wasted in childish amusements, and frivolous
vanities, the precious moments of that girlhood which can never be
recalled, and left myself scarcely worthy to be an associate of Eve
Effingham!"

The first feelings of Grace had so far gotten the control, that she
scarce knew what she said, or to whom she was speaking; she even
wrung her hands, in the momentary bitterness of her regrets, and in a
way to arouse all the sympathy of a lover.

"No one but yourself would say this, Miss Van Cortlandt, and least of
all your admirable cousin."

"She is, indeed, my admirable cousin! But what are _we_, in
comparison with such a woman. Simple and unaffected as a child, with
the intelligence of a scholar; with all the graces of a woman, she
has the learning and mind of a man. Mistress of so many
languages----"

"But you, too, speak several, my dear Miss Van Cortlandt."

"Yes," said Grace, bitterly, "I _speak_ them, as the parrot repeats
words that he does not understand. But Eve Effingham has used these
languages as means, and she does not tell you merely what such a
phrase or idiom signifies, but what the greatest writers have thought
and written."

"No one has a more profound respect for your cousin than myself, Miss
Van Cortlandt, but justice to you requires that I should say her
great superiority over yourself has escaped me."

"This may be true, Sir George Templemore, and for a long time it
escaped me too. I have only learned to prize her as she ought to be
prized by an intimate acquaintance; hour by hour, as it might be. But
even you must have observed how quick and intuitively my cousin and
Mrs. Bloomfield have understood each other to-day; how much extensive
reading, and, what polished tastes they have both shown, and all so
truly feminine! Mrs. Bloomfield is a remarkable woman, but she loves
these exhibitions, for she knows she excels in them. Not so with Eve
Effingham, who, while she so thoroughly enjoys every thing
intellectual, is content, always, to seem so simple. Now, it happens,
that the conversation turned once to-day on a subject that my cousin,
no later than yesterday, fully explained to me, at my own earnest
request; and I observed that, while she joined so naturally with Mrs.
Bloomfield in adding to our pleasure, she kept back half what she
knew, lest she might seem to surpass her friend. No--no--no--there is
not such another woman as Eve Effingham in this world!"

"So keen a perception o