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Cooper, James Fenimore, 1789-1851

"Tales for Fifteen, or, Imagination and Heart"

S. Frigate Chesapeake was killed on
June 1, 1813, as his ship was captured by H.M.S.
Shannon outside Boston harbor; Marengo = battle
won by Napoleon against the Austrians on June 14,
1800--"Antonio's" military career was truly an
amazing one!; pluck honor.... = slightly misquoted
from Shakespeare, "King Henry IV, Part I," Act I,
Scene 3, line 202; chill penury.... = slightly
misquoted from Thomas Gray, "Elegy in a Country
Churchyard" verse 13}
Julia fairly gasped for breath as she read this
epistle: her very soul was entranced by the song.
Whatever of seeming contradiction there might be
in the letter of her friend, her active mind soon
reconciled. She was now really beloved, and in a
manner most grateful to her heart--by the sole
power of sympathy and congenial feelings.
Whatever might be the adoration of Edward
Stanley, it was more than equalled by the
admiration of this amiable girl. Her very soul
seemed to her to be devoted to his worship; she
thought of him constantly, and pictured out his
various distresses and dangers; she wept at his
sufferings, and rejoiced in his prosperity--and all
this in the short space of one hour. Julia was yet in
the midst of this tumult of feeling, when another
letter was placed in her hands, and on opening it
she read as follows:
"Dear Julia,
"I should have remembered my promise, and come
out and spent a week with you, had not one of
Mary's little boys been quite sick; of course I went
to her until he recovered.


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