With the enthusiasm of children we examined every nook and corner, growing constantly more excited as our search proceeded; Aelios was radiant; I had never seen her eyes sparkle more brightly, her cheeks glow more vividly; and I realized as never before how extraordinarily fortunate I was. And it seemed as if her emotions corresponded with mine! “Is it not the strangest whim of fate,” she asked, “that you have come down here to me, my beloved? How easily I might have missed you! How easily we might each have gone through life not knowing that the other existed!” “So it has been with all lovers since the world began,” I returned. “Even in Atlantis, love must always seem a miracle.” “Even in Atlantis, it always is a miracle,” she amended; and she looked up at me with a smile so luminous and trustful, so kindly and so tinged with a rapturous emotion, that I could not but admit that she was right. The days that followed this delightful interview are but a blur in my memory. Although every hour was slow-footed with the suspense and the waiting, it seems to me that but a moment elapsed between our departure from our chosen home and our happy return ... the intervening events are all obscured by that never-to-be-forgotten morning when Aelios and I entered the office of the Local Adviser and were officially united. The actual ceremony was insignificant--indeed, there was no ceremony at all. We had merely to record our names for a second time, writing them in the Marriage Book which the housing representative had mentioned--an enormously thick volume bound in blue and gold, with thousands of pages, of which one was devoted to the history of each marriage. There were no questions asked us; there were no high-sounding formulas to be spoken by clockwork; there were no official representatives of saintliness to offer dogmatic advice; there were no vows to be taken, no promises to be made, no witnesses to gape or snicker, no pompous giving or receiving of the bride. We merely furnished the State with that record which it required, and did so without having to purchase a preliminary printed tag by way of permission; and after we had entered our names in the book, we were not insulted with any attempt to sanctify proceedings with words of antique witchcraft, nor humiliated by any implication that our own feelings would not amply solemnize the day.