I almost think, if it does not sound far-fetched to say so, that the girl enjoyed those ten days with me, prattling about her lover and endowing him with gifts of beauty and nobility and wisdom which neither he nor any man I ever met possessed, more than the fortnight of feverish joy in his actual presence which followed. Not that Fabian was disappointing as a _fiancé_; far from it. He had the gift of falling into raptures easily, and he fell in love with his destined bride as promptly as heart could desire. But the imaginative quality, which formed so important a feature of the young girl's romantic passion, caused her at first to shrink from his vehement caresses as at a blow to her ideal, while on the other hand the light touch of his fingers would send a convulsive shiver through her whole frame. How did I know all this? I can scarcely tell. And yet it is true, and I learnt it early in Fabian's short visit. As the savage knows the signs of the sky, so did I, living by myself, study to some purpose the gentle nature whose smiles made my happiness. When Fabian left us at the end of a fortnight, it was settled that the wedding was to take place in six weeks' time at Newcastle. I had a prejudice against my ward's being married in Scotland, where I conceived, rightly or wrongly, that a certain looseness of the marriage-tie prevailed. On the other hand, I would not let her go to London to be married, being of opinion that such a bride was worth a journey. So Mrs. Ellmer having some relations at Newcastle, she and her daughter spent there the three weeks immediately preceding the ceremony. I missed them dreadfully during those three weeks, and was not without a vague hope somewhere down in the depths of my heart that something unforeseen might happen to prevent the marriage. But when I arrived at Newcastle on the evening before the appointed day, Fabian was already there, everybody was in the highest spirits; and Mrs. Ellmer's Newcastle cousins, rather proud of the position in 'society' which they were assured the bride was going to hold, had undertaken to provide a handsome wedding breakfast. I gave her away next morning, in the old church with its crowned tower which they now call a cathedral. I think perhaps she guessed something more than I would have had her know in the vestry when the service was over, when I asked her for a kiss and fell a-trembling as she granted it; at any rate she turned very white and grave in the midst of her happiness, and thenceforth dropped her voice to a humble half-whisper whenever she spoke to me. She had been married in her travelling dress, an innovation rather alarming to Newcastle; but she looked so pretty in her first silk gown--a dark brown--and in the long sealskin mantle that had been my wedding present, that I think some of the damsels at the breakfast decided that this fashion was one to be followed.