Long, long they remained in that still trance of joy, but at last Elsie withdrew herself, laughing, from his arms, sat down beside him, and they began to talk of their future home. He told her it would be indeed a cabin in the backwoods of Maryland; but not a hunter’s cabin, as she fancifully supposed. Oh, no! but a country doctor’s dwelling, in a new settlement. And that he would not return at eve in the hunter’s picturesque costume, with a gun and a nine-antlered deer across his shoulders, but upon the back of a stout mule, with a country doctor’s saddle-bags behind him. How would she like that? “Oh, very well, dearest Magnus! for then you will be saving life instead of taking it. Oh, yes, I do like—I do love—your profession, Magnus. Since you must have one, I like it better than any other you could have chosen. I think physicians do more disinterested good than any other set of men on earth. I will not even except the preachers. Oh, yes! I do love your profession, dear Magnus, and love you better, if possible, for being a poor country doctor. God love and bless you! When you shall have come home tired, from your long round—oh, you shall have sweet repose, love—indeed you shall! God bids me to assure you that you shall. Whatever our cabin home may be, I can make it a little haven of repose—a little heaven of bliss for you. Oh, indeed I do not fear; my whole full soul assures me that we shall be happy and victorious over fate. Let me kiss your eyes—you kissed mine just now, so sweetly. God bless those grand eyes! Oh, Magnus, can a cabin or a garb of homespun hide the light, the greatness that is in you? Oh, Magnus, I saw a king and several princes of the blood when I was presented at court by General Armstrong; but their foreheads were low and receding, their presence had the strut without the dignity of majesty. Oh, Magnus, their kingly crown could not have given either that magnificent forehead of yours. Oh, Magnus, there is something greater in you than any surrounding you can have. Do not any more dread that I shall be either pained or revolted at anything in the circumstances of our condition. The rough walls of a log cabin will not shock or sadden me.” “No, darling, for the rough walls of our log cabin, like the rough bark of an oak tree, has something really picturesque about it; but”—said he, in a half-sorrowful, half-comic way—“the pots and kettles, the mops and brooms!” “What! the humble little household gods and goddesses that set up no pretension to worship, or even to honorable mention, and yet confer so much benefit? No, indeed. I have a kindly feeling for all such. Mine, if they can’t be beautiful, shall be neat and pretty. Oh, don’t you remember when we were children, and used to run in out of the snow to old Aunt Polly’s kitchen, and how she’d press us in to help her every time she could? Oh, I know a great deal about cooking, and I always had a turn for housekeeping.”