‘No, I think not; but, perhaps, I may. Just a shirt and a brush and comb, please, nothing more. I am so grieved for the Cramptons,’ said her husband to her, in a lower tone, ‘so deeply, deeply grieved. This will break their hearts. I shouldn’t wonder if it were the death of both of them.’ ‘Yes, yes; poor, dear, old people, they loved her so,’ rejoined Hannah, with the tears in her eyes, ‘and we shall feel it terribly, too, Henry, when we have time to realise that it is true.’ ‘Oh! that’s all nonsense,’ said her husband, roughly. ‘It is of them we have to think. What can it matter to us? Sooner or later she must have married someone, and _we_ have no especial antipathy to Papists. But there is no time to discuss the matter now. Do as I tell you, and let me be off.’ And in another five minutes the two partners in the firm of Hindes & Crampton were driving down the elm-tree road together. CHAPTER VI. Honeymoons are not always the blissful periods anticipated by those who enter on them, but Frederick’s and Jenny’s promised to be an exception to the rule. The girl was so lively and merry, so easily pleased with all that surrounded her, and disposed to make so light of any little _désagremens_, that she formed a delightful companion. And then, she was so desperately in love with her husband, and he with her, that they both thought, and perhaps rightly, that they had never known what happiness was till then. Frederick especially, who had frittered away his time and his affections on more girls than he could remember the names of, could not understand how he could have been such a fool as to waste his life in so frivolous a manner, when so much pleasure had been within his grasp. The day after his marriage, when he was ready to consider himself quite a Benedict of experience, he decided that there was but one source of happiness, worth calling by the name, in this world, and that was the whole and undivided love of a wife, whose heart you felt to be entirely your own. It was a lovely day, and the two young people were sitting in a room that looked upon the sea, watching the bright waves that were dashing up against the harbour bar, and filling the air with their sweet, salt flavour. Jenny, looking the very quintessence of youth and beauty, attired in a flowing gown of white muslin and lace, with a knot of blue ribbon in her sunny hair, was seated on her husband’s knee, playing with his dark locks, and ever and anon pressing her ripe lips upon his forehead. ‘My darling, my darling!’ he said, in a fervour of admiration, ‘how happy we are! Did you ever think we should be so exquisitely happy, Jenny?’