* * * Ours was a brief engagement. Laurence wished it so; and I disputed not--I never disputed with him in any thing. Besides, I was not happy at home--my sisters did not understand him. They jested with me because he was grave and reserved--even subject to moody fits sometimes. They said, "I should have a great deal to put up with; but it was worth while, for Mr. Shelmerdine's grand estate atoned for all." My Laurence! as if I had ever thought whether he were rich or poor! I smiled, too, at my sisters' jests about his melancholy, and the possibility of his being "a bandit in disguise." None truly knew him--none but I! Yet I was half afraid of him at times; but that was only from the intensity of my love. I never asked him of his for me--how it grew--or why he had so long concealed it; enough for me that it was there. Yet it was always calm: he never showed any passionate emotion, save one night--the night before our wedding day.
I went with him to the gate myself, walking in the moonlight under the holly trees. I trembled a little; but I was happy--very happy. He held me long in his arms ere he would part with me--the last brief parting ere we would have no need to part any more. I said, looking up from his face unto the stars, "Laurence, in our full joy, let us thank God, and pray Him to bless us."
His heart seemed bursting: he bowed his proud head, dropped it down upon my shoulder, and cried, "Nay, rather pray Him to _forgive_ me. Adelaide, I am not worthy of happiness--I am not worthy of you."
He, to talk in this way! and about me! but I answered him soothingly, so that he might feel how dear was my love--how entire my trust.
He said, at last, half mournfully, "You are content to take me then, just as I am; to forgive my past--to bear with my present--to give hope to my future. Will you do this, my love, my Adelaide?"
I answered, solemnly, "I will." Then, for the first time, I dared to lift my arms to his neck; and as he stooped I kissed his forehead. It was the seal of this my promise--which may God give me strength to keep evermore!
We were laughing to-day--Laurence and I--about _first loves_. It was scarcely a subject for mirth; but one of his bachelor friends had been telling us of a new-married couple, who, in some comical fashion, mutually made the discovery of each other's "first loves." I said to my husband, smiling happily, "that _he_ need have no such fear." And I repeated, half in sport, the lines--