"My dearest," she said, with a faint smile stealing across the childlike face, "it does not vex me. It pleases me. There is nothing dreadful about the idea to you, is there? I cannot go with you to church to be married. When you talk of a carriage, and white horses, and bells, it seems to me to be so far off—so very, very far away—that it is of no use, and it makes me miserable. But now, if we were married here, how I should like to hear you call me your wife, as you went about the room!" "And so you shall, my pet, whenever you please. But for you to turn such a dreadful heretic, Dove, and imagine that a marriage outside a church is a marriage at all! Why, even a dispensation from the Archbishop of Canterbury seems sacrilegious where there are no bridecake, and old slippers, and a lot of carriages." "Now you’re becoming kind again, Will. And you’ll do as I ask without bothering me about reasons? What I should like, you know, would be the power of getting married when I wanted—if I could have the dispensation, as you say, all ready, and just at any moment I might terrify you by crying out, ’Will, come and marry me!’ I might be merciful, too, you know, Will; and perhaps let you off, if you were very good and attentive. I’d tell you some day to go to the drawer and take out the paper and burn it. It would be like giving a slave his freedom." "You will be such a dreadful tyrant when you’re married, Dove, that I shudder to think of what you’ll do to me." "I think I should have been very kind to you, Will," said the girl, suddenly bursting into tears, and turning away her face from him. Next morning Dove was a great deal better, everybody thought. Even the doctor spoke cheerfully, and the whole house was radiant. A thaw had set in; the air was foggy, and damp, and close; and the streets were in that condition which melted snow and drizzling rain generally produce in London; but inside the house there was sunlight enough for all concerned. And when, on the following morning, the weather cleared, and the sun painted bars of yellow on the curtains of the windows, it seemed as if the old sad anxious time were past, and the dawn of a new and happy life had broken over them. Nevertheless, Dove did not give up her idea of the special licence and the private marriage. Rather she lay and brooded over it; and sometimes her face was moved with a happy delight which those around her could not well understand. Indeed, her heart was so bent upon it, that they all agreed to acquiesce in her wishes, and the necessary steps were taken to secure the legalization of the ceremony. The covert opposition which the proposal had met was surely not due to any opposition to the marriage, on the part of any one concerned, but to another and vaguer feeling, which no one of them dared to reveal to the other. Said Dove to him suddenly this morning— "Is Miss Brunel in town, Will?" "I don’t know, Dove."