The deep crimson in Cynthia's cheeks, that her late eminent exertions had induced, lent her even more of an adorable appearance than even I had ever observed in her. And when she tossed me my cloak, and gravely gave one of the posies into my hands, I think I never saw the eyes of a woman beam with such mirth and high spirits. Flushed and breathless as we were, no two human persons could possibly have been happier. Already our haphazard, vagrant life had proved the antidote of that weariness of the world, that fatigue of mind and body, the chains of polite life had induced. Already we had come to take a fraternal pride, as it were, in one another. We no longer had to apprehend how we should get through the day without perishing of weariness, but rather how to pass it without perishing of hunger and violence. And we were revealing such unexpected qualities to ourselves and each other in overcoming these calamities that we were falling in love anew with our own heroic attributes, and were already prepared to vow to one another that we were a monstrous well-assorted pair. Indeed, the foolish bull had given us such a fine conceit of ourselves, that on the score of the hour of high-wrought happiness he brought us, he must, I am sure, be allowed after all to be our friend. A good deal of walking through the blossoming fields brought us at last on to a good broad highway, and a little later having climbed up a hill, we saw from the top of it the thing we were seeking. A village nestled below, and very properly the tallest roof among the collection that clustered there together, and by far the most imposing object of them all, was a sweet little country church, grey with age, surrounded by a low stone wall whose crannies were filled with moss. Approaching it we were overjoyed to find that a pretty little parsonage stood beside it, which in every particular matched the quaint and venerable appearance of the church itself. But no sooner had we come to the latticed gate of the parson's house than our pleasure fled suddenly away. We had been bold enough in the contemplation of the deed, and had even been disposed to treat it airily. Yet when our fingers fell on the parson's latch, we were suddenly confronted with its magnitude. We were going to be married! Now although I had started from town not twelve hours before as cynical and desperate a character as any to be found, the humane influences that had been brought to bear upon me, even in that short period, had not been without their effect. I began to see things in their true relation once again, and even to be sensible of feelings I had so long outlived that I almost forgot that I had ever known them. For instance, the emotion of timidity that overtook me at the parson's gate, I could have sworn I had never met with before in my life. The uncomfortable sense of the bashful business to follow caused me to falter with my hand still at the latch, and to parley with Cynthia.