"My dear," says I, feeling that a little sentiment would not come amiss this rare spring morning, "I hope you have realized what I have to offer you. I have but my blasted reputation, my destitute condition, my debts, my crimes, my prostituted name. This is all the estate that a very humble, constant heart is endowed with." "They will serve," says Cynthia simply. "If you were the wickedest man in England, and by your own account you are not far removed from that state, it would be the same. It is not for what you be that I like you; it is for what I think you to be." "If it comes to that," says I, "I don't suppose it is me at all you care for. It is not myself you are in love with, nor my virtues, nor my vices, nor my hair, my eyes, my clothes, my understanding, nor anything that is mine. You are at that romantical instant of your womanhood when you have fallen in love with the name of love. If instead of a man I were a tame white mouse, or a bob-tailed rabbit, or a bull-calf you would invest me with all the pretty fancies that are running in your head, so that the reflection in your mind would yet be the one that you most wished to see. But a truce to philosophy, let us to church." Cynthia was so evidently of my mind in this last particular that she laughed, and resumed the singing of her ballad, as we strode out the brisker for our intercourse. CHAPTER VII AN INSTRUCTIVE CHAPTER; IN WHICH IT IS SHOWN THAT IF A LITTLE LEARNING IS DANGEROUS, MUCH MAY BE CALAMITOUS. As we took our way through the grass of a most charming flower-coated country, there was a kind of rivalry between us as to who should be the first to spy a church. The honour of doing so had not fallen to either of us, when Cynthia suddenly darted from the path to pick some white violets out of a hedge. "Why," says she, in the delight of finding them, "we will make ourselves a posy apiece to carry with us to church, as it is our wedding morning. Oh, look at the marsh-marigolds at the side of the brook there!"