Hoboken : A Romance of New York

By Fay, Theodore Sedgwick

Book Id: WPLBN0000160131
Format Type: PDF eBook:
File Size: 2.23 MB
Reproduction Date: 2005

Title:	Hoboken : A Romance of New York
Author:	Fay, Theodore Sedgwick
Volume:
Language:	English
Subject:	Literature, Literature & thought, Writing.
Collections:	Classic Literature Collection
Historic Publication Date:
Publisher:	World Ebook Library


Citation APA MLA Chicago S. Fa, B. T. (n.d.). Hoboken : A Romance of New York. Retrieved from http://gutenberg.cc/

Excerpt
It is not easy to say what sense there is in jesting at young lovers. If they are entering into a union destined to be favourable to their happiness, there is nothing ridiculous in it; if not, it is rather a serious affair. Miss Elton had been like one of the family for years, and the Lennox children had played with her, and quarrelled and romped in happy freedom from the feverish malady which goes in the world by the name of love. But Time, that revolutionizing old gentleman, always busy with everything, and never leaving the smallest blade of grass one day what it was the day before, had almost imperceptibly altered the individuals in question. He had advanced the little, sturdy, hoop-playing Harry into a promising young lawyer; and Mary, with her short-cropped, boyish hair and pantalettes, into a slender girl of a little over fifteen. Frank's round jacket and smooth, rosy face were metamorphosed into an officer's becoming coat, and a manly, whiskered countenance, very much browned by the sun, where, however, as yet lurked all the transparent beauty and ingenuousness of a boy; while Fanny Elton, from the sweetest little rosy-cheeked, bright-eyed child that ever was seen, who had a kiss for everybody that she loved, without particular reference to age or sex, had, somehow or other, acquired a new form and new ideas. And, in the intervals of Frank's military education at West Point, when he came home on a visit, or the family spent a day or two at that enchanting spot, he saw, year after year, the riotous little, beautiful tom-boy softened and subdued into gentle and lovely girlhood, inches and feet added to her stature, new lines and graces to her countenance, new charms and wonders to her form, timidity, blushes, expression, thought, feeling, and opinions unfolding themselves like hues and leaves in a rosebud, and with a fragrance which touched his senses as strangely. The romping and kissing, the shouting and quarrelling, had ceased. He was deep in the manly mysteries of mathematics, engineering, and other accomplishments indispensable to a soldier and a gentleman, and she—we might here attempt to trace, in a magnificent poetic style, the nature of the silent and enchanting changes which had come over her; but the indulgent reader will doubtless let us off with the simple annunciation that she had shot up into a tall, sweet girl, and that, to make a long story short, Frank was desperately in love with her. In his present condition, he was not altogether, however, at his ease, as what lover ever is! He had no reason to suppose himself disagreeable to her; on the contrary, their long acquaintance, the intimacy of their childhood, the tender and close attachment and companionship existing between her and his sister, placed him on terms of perfect familiarity, and gave him not only the constant access of a favourite cousin, but of a brother. Lovers have been, who, for a moment's solitary interview with the object of their affection, for one touch of the peerless hand, one lock of hair, one worn riband, would have risked their lives. Frank's case was different. He was with this young person as often, as much, and as unobservedly as he pleased. He shook hands with her frequently. He occasionally walked with her from his father's house quite alone. He had already made a tolerable collection of ribands, shoestrings, old roses, etc., in the indefinite augmentation of which he did not see any particular danger or difficulty; and, had he boldly and plumply asked her for a lock of that rich auburn hair, on the occasion of his departure for Prairie du Chien, where he was likely to remain six or seven years, it is probable that, although the request had been preferred at dinner, before the whole family, the warm-hearted, sunshiny girl would have clipped him off a good bouncing handful without a moment's hesitation. Yet here he was, soon to

Table of Contents
· VOL. I. · CHAPTER I. · CHAPTER II. · CHAPTER III. · CHAPTER IV. · CHAPTER V. · CHAPTER VI. · CHAPTER VII. · CHAPTER VIII. · CHAPTER IX. · CHAPTER X. · CHAPTER XI. · CHAPTER XII. · CHAPTER XIII. · CHAPTER XIV. · CHAPTER XV. · CHAPTER XVI. · CHAPTER XVII. · CHAPTER XVIII. · CHAPTER XIX. · CHAPTER XX.