The _Honey-moon_ begins at the moment when the pair enter the carriage and the old shoes are thrown after them. The horses start, and the newly-married are whirled away into the deeps of an Unknown! You may, perhaps, catch a glimpse of the bride, wistfully stretching her neck and turning her eyes, dimned with tears, to the door-steps where stand those with whom she has lived--and whom she now, it may be, suddenly finds are very dear to her! But the husband has grasped the waist of his new possession, and is absorbed in _that_. He has before been the owner of horses, dogs, and the like, which have worn his collar--_this_ is another and very different bit of flesh and blood; none the less, however, branded as his own exclusive possession, and ever after to bear _his_ name! He understands so well the mere _fiction_ of this ownership, that he is by no means sure that after all he have not made a _bad bargain_--it may prove _too_ costly, and be by no means either useful or obedient! However, with his arm about his _wife_, just now he hardly realises these doubts, but feels, or tries to feel, _ecstatic_--as he ought. The Honey-moon thus begun, ends exactly with one moon. It is a received opinion that the Incantations at the _rite_ exorcise the Evil One for the period absolutely, though he may (as the Barbarians express it) "play the very Devil" with them afterwards! I was told that the Honey-moon was so called because, during the Moon, the new couple fed wholly on honey and drank weak tea! There is some _mystery_ attached to it, for my questions were always answered with a doubtful look. I had no opportunity of absolutely solving it--though my observation led me to judge that the honey diet did not agree with people--in truth, I wonder at its use. I have seen a bride after her return, thin, pale, peevish, who had left round and rosy; a bridegroom before the moon _jolly_ [Qui-ky] and devoted to his bride, return taciturn, careless, forgetful to pick up a fan, or to place a chair for his wife, and even (on the sly) kick the very poodle which he before-time caressed! and when the wife _pouting_ has said, "_Out again, George_," he has replied, lighting a cigar, "_Yas, I must meet the fellahs, you know_!" The best hint on this subject which I ever got was from a married Englishmen, who to my query said, "Ah-Chin, my dear fellah, call Honey-moon _Matrimonial Discovery_, and think about it, ha!" As the honey-eating and tea-drinking are to go on, whilst the new couple are quite retired by themselves, away from their friends and all usual pastimes and occupations, necessarily they have only _each other_ to look at with attention. The honey-eating is trying enough, and needs, one would think, all the relief of gaiety and occupation possible! But no, it is only to eat and to closely watch each other!