Page:Watch and Ward (Boston, Houghton, Osgood and Company, 1878).djvu/38

Rh Hubert, who reserved his faith for heavenly mysteries, had small credence for earthly ones, and he would have affirmed that to his perception they loved each other with a precisely equal ardor, beyond everything in life, to wit, but themselves. Roger had in his mind a kind of metaphysical "idea" of a possible Hubert, which the actual Hubert took a wanton satisfaction in turning upside down. Roger had drawn in his fancy a pure and ample outline, into which the young ecclesiastic projected a perversely ill-fitting shadow. Roger took his cousin more seriously than the young man took himself. In fact, Hubert had apparently come into the world to play. He played at life, altogether; he played at learning, he played at theology, he played at friendship; and it was to be conjectured that, on particular holidays, he would play pretty hard at love. Hubert, for some time, had been settled in New York, and of late they had exchanged but few letters. Something had been said about Hubert's coming to spend a part of his summer vacation with his cousin; now that the latter was at the head of a household and a family, Roger reminded him of their understanding. He had finally told him his little romance, with a fine bravado of indifference to his verdict; but he was, in secret, extremely anxious to obtain Hubert's judgment of the heroine. Hubert replied that he was altogether prepared for the news, and that it must be a very pretty sight to see him at dinner pinning her bib, or to hear him sermonizing her over a torn frock.

"But, pray, what relation is the young lady to me?" he added. "How far does the adoption go, and where does it stop? Your own proper daughter would be my