THE FIRST LOVE OF ADA SOMERS.

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BY A NEW CONTRIBUTOR.

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Poca favilla gran Fiamma seconda. Dante.

When Ada Somers was a romp of twelve years, she chanced one day, in too bold a search for some water-lilies, to fall headlong into the stream from whose blue depths they lifted their pretty heads.

Truth alone compels us to relate this mishap of Ada’s: for although the quasi drowning of heroines has been a popular tableau of romance ever since streams and heroines were; still, this is the era of investigation; and we who on our railroads outstrip the speed of the bronze horse—we for whom the delicate and trembling wires of the telegraph do the office of a thousand Ariels—we who have called upon the sun to be our portrait-painter, and upon the moon to yield up her secrets that our lecture-rooms may be crowed; surely we have some right to think for ourselves! and we boldly proclaim that nothing can be less sublime and more ridiculous than the loss of one’s equilibrium—a plunge head-foremost—and the spectacle of two inverted feet without any apparent body.

Perhaps that sometime race of heroines, who wandered up hill and down dale in satin slippers—unsoiled—undraggled—and unscratched—and wept without the concomitants of red eyes and swelled noses; perhaps a race of such curious physiological construction possessed also the secret of losing their balance without losing their grace. But our poor Ada was not of this race: she was only a little American girl, subject to the laws of gravitation, so she fell into the river in the manner above described. Poor little thing! she might have floated off to keep company with Glendower’s spirits in the vasty deep, but for the timely interposition of a certain youth, by name James Darrington. James was taking his afternoon ride along the river-bank, when he heard a sudden splash, and turned his eyes just in time to catch a view of the two little feet above-mentioned. He was not, like the Countess Hahn-Hahn, versed in the physiognomy of feet, so without venturing a guess as to the ownership of the pair in question, he sprung from his horse and plunged into the river.

The spot where Ada had fallen was deep, and its bed was a mass of treacherous slime; but James was a bold swimmer, and after some moments of struggle, ay, and of danger too, he succeeded in bearing his prize to the shore.

Now, as Ada was no heroine, she did not emerge from the river like a water-nymph: her faithful chronicler is fain to say that her dress was a net-work of slimy weeds; that her hair was tangled, and her face dirty. Nevertheless, she was a pretty little thing in spite of her draggled condition, and when James went home and thought over the matter, he felt bound by the chivalry of fifteen to fall in love with her, and he did so. To be sure, he had passed Ada Somers a hundred times, in his father’s house and at hers, without bestowing a thought upon her—but now that Destiny had thrown her into his arms, he saw that her hazel eyes were starry with brightness—that her rosy mouth was the nest of all the loves—and he resolved to keep her where she was.

Up to the day of her mishap, Ada had never thought of any thing more sentimental than skipping-ropes, pet fawns and ponies—but she suddenly became addicted to solitary walking, wild-flowers and moonlight. (N. B. These tastes lasted for about a week.) And instead of scampering over the country with a servant behind her, her pony Lightfoot roamed his paddock in lazy leisure, unless James Darrington was at liberty to accompany Lightfoot’s mistress in her ride.

James, though only fifteen, was so accomplished a horseman that Ada’s parents had no hesitation in committing her to his care. They were often joined in their rides by Ada’s favorite playmate, Catharine Ashton; but sometimes they rode alone, and although these rides were generally silent ones, still James thought them pleasanter when Catharine’s merry voice was not constantly challenging them to some childish feat, or making the woods ring with its bursts of glee.

“I hope I shall have her to myself to-day,” thought he, as he rode up the oak avenue to Mr. Somers’ house. Yes, there was Lightfoot pawing the ground alone—and no Catharine trying Fenella feats—cracking her riding-whip, and breaking the luxurious silence of his reveries with her ceaseless mirth.

James threw himself from his horse, rushed up the steps of the portico, and just as he was stammering an apology to Mrs. Somers for nearly upsetting her as she advanced to greet him, Ada came out equipped for her ride.

How sweetly the little gipsy looked, with her habit of dark green, her tiny while collar, and her black velvet hat and plume. Before James could present his hand, she sprung into her saddle, and cantered off with such speed that he put spurs to his horse to overtake her. The woods were gorgeous with beauty. Summer still lingered in the tender green of some trees, while others, tinted by the bold hand of autumn, towered in all the pomp of scarlet and yellow foliage. The crisp leaves rustled to the tread of their horses’ hoofs, and the soft breeze that swept over golden meadow and sunny hill, came laden to their young hearts with those sweet, vague reveries that visit the soul but once—but once!—in that untried season of youth when the earth seems starred with flowers, the sea mirrors naught but heaven, and the very consciousness of animal life is happiness. For some time the youthful pair rode on in silence, till at length emerging from the shady woods they came suddenly to an opening, where a grassy slope led down to the river, and to the spot which some months before had been the scene of Ada’s misfortune.

“Oh, how beautiful!” exclaimed she, as she drew in her rein to look around. The turf was still bright with sunshine—the waters sparkled as if they had stolen the golden bed of the Pactolus—and above them, forever changing shape and hue, floated the silver clouds that hide from mortal gaze the home of Immortality!

“Beautiful!” was the response of her companion.

“Did you ever see such a bright sky!” continued the delighted child of nature. “And such a soft green turf, which, by the bye, Lightfoot is enjoying in his way—see, James, how nicely he crops the grass in a circle. Do you remember the story of the Dervise and the stray Camel? How he not only knew him to be astray, but found out that he was blind of one eye, lame in one leg, had lost a tooth, and was loaded with corn and honey, and all without having seen him? What a curious observer he must have been, that dervise!”

No answer was vouchsafed to this piece of Oriental lore, whose connection with Lightfoot’s skill in cropping grass was somewhat unintelligible to one who had not read the story; so Ada broke into new raptures over the beauty of the river.

This time James looked up, and gazed earnestly at her varying and animated countenance. “That stream had nearly wedded us, Ada.”

Ada tossed her pretty little head as she replied, “I am glad that I escaped such an ugly bridal.”

“Pshaw!” thought James, “she is but a child, and does not understand me.”

And he was quite right; for while he was perfectly aware of his being “in love,” Ada was utterly ignorant of the meaning of the phrase. All she knew was that James Darrington’s presence materially increased her happiness; but she would not have confessed to the very reeds and rushes that she liked him even more than she did her dear Catharine. Her wise and gentle mother, aware that her little daughter was in an Eden of ignorant bliss, prudently forbore to tender her the fruit of precocious wisdom. She knew that Ada was as childish as became her years, and she judged it best to leave that little heart undisturbed by knowledge of the good and evil of artificial life.

James, on the contrary, though he ventured no more declarations to the lady of his thoughts, indemnified himself for the same, by pouring out his ecstasies into his mother’s ear. Mrs. Darrington was something more than amused with this juvenile courtship; she was delighted to be the recipient of her son’s confessions: too well skilled in the human heart to repulse his confidence by ridicule, she contented herself with reminding him that to win Ada he must deserve her. So, the course of Mr. James Darrington’s true love ran on, for a while, without a ripple.

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