And Robin was come home again, and I was lying in his arms, and he was kissing me and calling me all the sweet and tender things that he could invent, and laughing and sighing together as if too happy to be quiet. Oh! sweetest moments of my life! Why did they pass so quickly? Oh! sacrament of love, which can be taken only once, and yet changes the whole of life and fills it with memory which is wholly sweet! In all other earthly things there is something of bitterness. In this holy joy of pure and sacred love there is no bitterness--no; not any. It leaves behind nothing of reproach or of repentance, of shame or of sorrow. It is altogether holy. Now, when my boy had somewhat recovered from his first rapture, and I had assured him very earnestly that I was not, indeed, an angel, but a most sinful woman, daily offending in my inner thoughts (an assurance which he received, indeed, with an appearance of disbelief and scorn), I was able to consider his appearance, which was now very fine, though always, as I learned when I saw him among other gentlemen, with some soberness, as became one whose upbringing inclined him to plainness of dress as well as of speech and manner. He wore a long wig of brown hair, which might have been his own but for its length; his hat was laced and cocked, which gave him a gallant and martial appearance; his neckcloth was long and of fine lace; beside him in my russet gown I must have looked truly plain and rustic; but Robin was pleased not to think so, and love is a great magician to cheat the eyes. He was home again; he told me he should travel no more (yet you shall hear how far he afterwards travelled against his will); his only desire now was to stay at home and live as his grandfather had lived, in his native village; he had nothing to pray for but the continuance of my love--of which, indeed, there was no doubt possible. It was now close upon six o'clock, and I begged him to go away for the present, and if my father and Sir Christopher should agree, and if it should seem to his Honour a fit and proper thing that Robin should marry a girl so penniless as myself, why--then--we might meet again after breakfast, or after dinner; or, indeed, at any other time, and so discourse more upon the matter. So he left me, being very reluctant to go; and I, forgetting my garden and what I had come forth to do, returned to the house.