'My child, my child, my precious child! My God, I thank Thee. You will never take away from me your sweeter manner?' 'No.' 'You will never take away from me this sweetest hand?' 'No.' 'Sweet is the kiss that comes alone with willingness. My love, my love, my life, my life, my child, my darling child, my wife! Does that word "wife" affright you, Marie?' 'No.' * * * * * * * * * * He knew he could not sleep that night, so did not undress when he went to his room. For awhile he walked up and down in suppressed excitement. This was the most important day of his life. She, whom his heart had set above all other earthly prizes, had consented to be his for ever. Intoxicating thought! For ever! He should now be specially privileged to see her every day. Every day, until she became his finally, and then no power on earth could take her from him for an hour. His own, his darling, his most beautiful and amiable Marie. He should not call her Marie. It had an unfamiliar, foreign sound. But how sweet and dutiful and homely sounded Mary! It was the gentlest and the dearest name borne by woman. His gentlest and his dearest love. What a gift bounteous Providence had bestowed on him that day! All life ought to be one long thanksgiving for this rich boon. When morning came, and she entered the breakfast-room and he went to her--to her, his most dear love--and their eyes met and they looked with a new meaning into the face of one another, what profound, what sober joy! He would not hold her hand unduly, but press it and release it, and thank her again with his eyes. And all through the time, when others were by, they would have secret signals of love confessed, and these signals would be invisible or else unintelligible to anyone but themselves. And when they were alone--when she and he were alone! Oh, priceless privilege to be alone with her, and free to speak to her of love, and sit beside her as a lover might, and draw the dear form close to him, and kiss her lips! Hold her to him and say no word, but feel through all his nature the one supreme emotion welling up continually, each moment seeming richer and richer as it came, and in his mind only one thought, 'It is she! It is she!' Sleep? He could not sleep now. Those who had dull humdrum lives might sleep; but he--he, with all this joy for the present, this anticipation for the future, how could he sleep? No, no. No sleep for him to-night. He had never before regretted he did not smoke. If what smokers said about tobacco was true, it would be delightful to sit here now before the fire, and while looking at her face through the halo lent by a pipe, count the strikings of the clocks, and mark the lessening time that separated her from him. Read? No. He didn't think he could read. Verse was out of the question. His life now was a poem, and he should be able to see beauty in nothing that did not resemble her--that she did not share.