Do not, I implore you, Miss Effingham, suppose
me so selfish as to feel any uneasiness to-night on my own account."
"Is it then, as usual, all for me, my dear, my worthy old nurse, that you
feel this anxiety? Put your heart at ease, for they who know best betray
no alarm; and you may observe that the captain sleeps as tranquilly this
night as on any other."
"But he is a rude man, and accustomed to danger. He has neither wife nor
children, and I'll engage has never given a thought to the horrors of
having a form precious as this floating in the caverns of the ocean,
amidst ravenous fish and sea-monsters."
Here her imagination overcame poor Nanny Sidley, and she folded her arms
about the beautiful person of Eve, and sobbed violently. Her young
mistress, accustomed to similar exhibitions of affection, soothed her with
blandishments and assurances that soon restored her self-command, when the
dialogue was resumed with a greater appearance of tranquillity on the part
of the nurse. They conversed a few minutes on the subject of their
reliance on God, Eve returning fourfold, or with the advantages of a
cultivated intellect, many of those simple lessons of faith and humility
that she had received from her companion when a child; the latter
listening, as she always did, to these exhortations, which sounded in her
ears, like the echoes of all her own better thoughts, with a love and
reverence no other could awaken.
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