“It is too fine to be indoors this morning. I am going down to the sea. I yearn for the sea this morning. Go up to the house, will you? Fetch a cushion or so. Then we can be luxurious.” He executed his commission quickly, and when he came up to her again had not only a cushion but a rug on his arm. She said quickly: “What a wonderful morning! Isn’t it a God-given morning?” “All mornings are wonderful and God-given that bring me to you,” he answered little less soberly, walking by her side. “Won’t you lean a little on me, take my arm?” “Do I look decrepit?” She laughed, walking on light feet. Spring was everywhere, in the soft air, and the throats of courting birds, in the breeze and both their hearts. They went down to the sea and he arranged the cushions against that very rock behind which I had once sat and heard them talk. She said now she must face the sea, the winds that blew from it. “Not too cold?” he asked her. “Not too anything. You may sit on the rug too, there is a bit to spare for you. What book have you in your pocket?” “No book today. I carried Anne’s prayer-book.” “‘Science and Health’?” She was full of merriment and laughter. “No; the ordinary Church Service. There was nothing else available.” “Oh, yes, there was. I sent for a copy of Mrs. Eddy’s lucubrations.” “No!” “Of course I did. I had to make myself acquainted with a subject on which I should be compelled to talk.” “What a wonderful woman you are.” “Not at all. If she had been a South Sea Islander I’d have welcomed her with shells or beads. Tell me, have I made a success? Will she give her consent?” “Have you given yours, have you really given yours? You have never said so in so many words.” “Well, the implication must have been fairly obvious.” The eyes she turned on him were full of happy laughter, almost girlish. Since yesterday she had had this new strange bloom of youth. “Don’t tell me your sister has not guessed.” “I told her.” “You told her! Well! I never! as Stevens would say. And you were pretending not to know!” “I only said you had never put it into words. Say it now, Margaret, out here, this wonderful Sunday.” “What am I to say?” “Put your little hand in mine, your sweet flower of a hand.” He took it. “Not a flower, a weed. See how brown they have got since I’ve been here.” He kissed the weed or flower of her hand. “Say, ‘Gabriel, you shall be my husband. I will marry you the very first day I am free!’” Her brows knitted, she took her hand away a little pettishly. “I _am_ free. Why do you remind me?” “Say, ‘I will marry you on the last day in May, in six weeks from today.’” “May marriages are unlucky.” “Ours could not be.” “Oh, yes! it could. I am a woman of moods.” “Every one more lovely than the last.” “Impatient and irritable.” “You shall have no time to be impatient. Anything you want I will rush to obtain for you. If you are irritable I will soothe you.” “And then I want hours to myself.”