They were married in Plumstead Church, by the Rev. Mr. Shackleton, on the 1st of October. “It was a kind of April day,” writes Willis, “half sunshine, half rain,”--recalling, somehow, the coincidence in Julia Mills’s diary between the checker-board tavern-sign and checkered human existence on a similar occasion in David Copperfield’s life,--“but everybody was kind, the villagers strewed flowers in the way, the church was half full of people, and my heart and eyes were more than full of tears.” The bridal pair were driven in Mr. Stace’s carriage to Rochester, posted next day to Dover, and crossed the Channel on the 3d. They passed a fortnight at the Hôtel Castiglione in Paris, and then returned to England, where they spent the winter, partly in London and partly at Woolwich, and in visits to the Shaws, Skinners, and other friends. Willis was busy in getting out the first and second English editions of “Pencillings” and the “Inklings of Adventure.” He presented his bride to his “swell” acquaintances in London, and was himself introduced by his brothers-in-law to numbers of military people, dined at the Artillery Mess, and was given the freedom of the Army and Navy Club. He set up an “establishment,” a cabriolet and a gray cab-horse, “tall, showy, and magnificent.” He had taken into service a young fellow named William Michell, the son of his landlady, a bright and handsome lad, who now made a very presentable tiger. William went to America with his master in the spring, remained in his service during his residence at Glenmary, and came back with him, in 1839, to England, where he ultimately got employment as a machinist, having a good education and a knack at mechanics. In May, 1836, after many leave-takings, Willis sailed with his wife for America. His “Lines on Leaving Europe,”-- “Bright flag at yonder tapering mast,”-- dated in the English Channel, express the feelings at once of regret and of hope with which he set his face homeward after an absence of four years and a half. These spirited lines are among the very few poems of Willis which seem destined to last. They have the real lyrical impulse, and it is not easy to read them without emotion. Emerson, who gives part of the poem in “Parnassus,” omits the closing stanza, in which the poet touchingly bespeaks a welcome for his English bride. “Room in thy heart! The hearth she left Is darkened to lend light to ours. There are bright flowers of care bereft, And hearts--that languish more than flowers. She was their light--their very air; Room, mother, in thy heart! place for her in thy prayer!”