_November_ 3 _d_. The most wonderful event has befallen--surely the most wonderful that ever came to pass outside the realms of fiction. Let me set down the circumstances of yesterday coolly and quietly if I can. I invoke the placid spirit of my Sheldon. I invoke all the divinities of Gray's Inn and "The Fields." Let me be legal and specific, perspicacious and logical--if this beating heart, this fevered brain, will allow me a few hours' respite. The autumn sunshine blessed the land again yesterday. Moorland and meadow, fallow and clover-field, were all the brighter for the steady downfall of the previous day. I walked to Newhall directly after breakfast, and found my dearest standing at the white five-barred gate, dressed in her pretty blue jacket, and with ribbons in her bonny brown hair. She was pleased to see me, though at first just a little inclined to play the _boudeuse_ on account of my absence on the previous day. Of course I assured her that it had been anguish for me to remain away from her, and quoted that divine sonnet of our William's to the like effect: "How like a winter hath my absence been!" and again: "O, never say that I was false of heart, Though absence seemed my flame to qualify." Equally of course my pet pretended not to believe me. After this little misunderstanding we forgave each other, and adored each other again with just a little more than usual devotion; and then we went for a long ramble among the fields, and looked at the dear placid sheep, who stared at us wonderingly in return, as if exclaiming to themselves, "And these are a specimen couple of the creatures called lovers!" We met uncle Joe in the course of our wanderings, and returned with him in time for the vulgar superstition of dinner, which we might have forgotten had we been left by ourselves. After dinner uncle Joe made off to his piggeries; while aunt Dorothy fell asleep in a capacious old arm-chair by the fire, after making an apologetic remark to the effect that she was tired, and had been a good deal "tewed" that morning in the dairy. "Tewed," I understand, is Yorkshire for "worried." Aunt Dorothy having departed into the shadowy realm of dreams, Charlotte and I were left to our own devices. There was a backgammon board on a side-table, surmounted by an old Indian bowl of dried rose-leaves; and, _pour nous distraire_, I proposed that I should teach my dearest that diverting game. She assented, and we set to work in a very business-like manner, Miss Halliday all attention, I serious as a professional schoolmaster. Unfortunately for my pupil's progress, the game of backgammon proved less entertaining than our own conversation, so, after a very feeble attempt on the one side to learn and on the other to teach, we closed the board and began to talk;--first of the past, then of the future, the happy future, which we were to share.