I suppose I shall be a maiden aunt forever! A slow, silent rise and a rather more rapid fall of her paltry, inadequate bosom accompanied this solemn thought of Miss Agatha Goodwin. For more than three years, since her elder sister Perpetua had married at last, Agatha had been known simply as Miss Goodwin. This signified that she, at twenty-nine, was the eldest unmarried daughter of her father, the village parson at Emberdale. With lamentably decreasing patience and ever-increasing desire, she had awaited her turn to be enrolled in the lists of Hymen. Alas, that legendary personage was a most dilatory and unreliable writer, whose pen seemed to have quite run out of ink by this year of Our Lord 1831.
With the death of the late, unlamented King George IV last year, and the accession to the throne of his younger brother as King William IV to popular acclaim, Agatha had tried to take heart from the example of Queen Adelaide. Princess Adelaide had been no beauty, and yet she had won the heart and the deep devotion of the Duke of Clarence, who was now the King. But alas, no gentleman had yet appeared to play William to Agatha's Adelaide, and perhaps none ever would.
She turned her attention to the gathering crowds in Grandison Hall, assembling for yet another ball, which doubtless would be attended by many eligible gentlemen. Here again, not one of them would pay more than perfunctory attention to Miss Goodwin. Beauties, not she, would be noticed; visions of loveliness, not she, would captivate gentlemen's eyes and hearts. Her mouse-brown hair, her plain, long, horse-like face, and her tall, egregiously thin, inconsequential figure would be quickly glanced at, and as quickly ignored.
Ignored by all but one, she thought--one weakling. This was Mr David Kinsmoor, three years her junior and about an equal number of inches shorter than she, who was now approaching her. She could count on Mr Kinsmoor alone to converse with her, to dance with her at least once at each ball, and even to gaze upon her, almost as if he did not notice her plainness. She could then count upon him to retreat, as politely, shyly, fearfully, and weakly as he had approached.
She looked upon him now with the mixture of sympathy and vague displeasure that had become habitual with her in his presence. True, his face was not unhandsome in a weak, boyish way, and she had no strong objection to his youth nor his shortness of stature; a lady as tall as she could hardly insist on a gentleman even taller! Indeed, when it came to espying an eligible gentleman who might look at her longer than two seconds at a time, Agatha had long ago cast to the winds all scruples regarding age, height, looks, wealth, and position.
Agatha's dreams ran to wholly fictitious men rather older than she, lonely but honest bachelors or widowers. All were good gentlemen, perhaps cast down in the world by ill fortune, but faithfully loved and cherished with all her heart by herself, though she be barefoot and dressed in rags. These imaginary husbands, though poor in worldly goods, were strong in mind and will, and rich in the precious treasure of manly devotion.
These imaginary husbands had not the least contempt for the face or figure of their loving wife. Agatha blushed to think of their ardent attentions to her, though the blush was far from stopping the thoughts. Indeed, these men had all conceivable goods of heart, mind, and soul but one: they failed to exist.
Mr Kinsmoor, now quite close to her, did exist--but he possessed a grave defect almost as fatal as nonexistence: he was a soft, cowardly weakling. This was almost the only fault in a man, short of a rake or any other sort of scoundrel, that Agatha would never be prepared to endure.
Worse yet, Agatha thought with a shudder, Mr Kinsmoor had feebly fallen under the sway of the wealthy and elegant rake Mr Rupert Farquhar, who now accompanied him. Of Mr Farquhar, Agatha had no opinion at all, meaning a most unfavourable opinion. Had it been possible to have less than no opinion, she would have had it.
On those occasions when she could not avoid Mr Farquhar, she had been forced to listen to his praise of French beauties as far superior to plain, homely, tedious Englishwomen. No doubt, if he had not already, Mr Farquhar would soon seek to introduce Mr Kinsmoor to the poisoned delights of sinning with French beauties--and Mr Kinsmoor, of course, would supinely follow along.
They were here. She must look at them. Mr Kinsmoor spoke, his voice as soft and high and weak as ever. "Good evening, Miss Goodwin," he said. "I--er--I sincerely hope you do not find my approach unwelcome." Did he hope she actually found his approach most welcome? Something in his shy but eager eyes suggested that he did.
"I might find your approach most welcome, if only you would not say such weak, cowardly, silly things--and if you were not accompanied by Mr Farquhar!" Of course Agatha did not really say the words, but she did not regret having thought them.
"Good evening, Mr Kinsmoor," she replied. "I have no idea why you might imagine that I find your approach unwelcome, any more than I have done at the many previous balls at which you have expressed the same hope." She feared she had trodden too heavily on the word "your," but it was too late to withdraw the emphasis.
Mr Farquhar did not miss the pointed suggestion that Miss Goodwin did find his own approach unwelcome. He retaliated by giving a conspicuous yawn and looking pointedly around the room, as if to declare without words that he would see the plainest, homeliest, most tedious Englishwoman in existence if he should look at Miss Goodwin.
Mr Kinsmoor, in marked contrast, gave a small, shy smile and said, "I am very glad, Miss Goodwin, that you have never found my approach unwelcome--and I shall do my utmost to ensure that you never do!"
"I do not expect to do so at any time," Agatha assured him. "In future," she assured him with a laugh, "please presume that I do not--and, I beg you, do not ask me on every occasion whether I do!" She gave him her biggest, brightest smile, with her blue eyes sparkling. Mr Kinsmoor's eyes opened wide in what seemed astonished gratitude.
Oh, dear! Oh, my goodness! Agatha suddenly thought. Can Mr Kinsmoor be in love with me? The next thought followed almost at once: If only he were not such a dreadful weakling! How easily, and how deeply, I might love him, if not for that!
She had then to decide at once upon a matter in which she had no experience whatever. Should she encourage Mr Kinsmoor in his affection? Or should she try to put a stop to it, because she refused to marry a weakling?
She glanced at Mr Farquhar--though he, of all men, was surely most ill qualified to direct her judgement. He was no longer yawning, nor looking around. He was staring straight at Miss Goodwin with a look of highly amused contempt.
Anger in her rose up against contempt in him. He thinks I'm too plain and tedious to attract Mr Kinsmoor away from French beauties! her heart cried out within her. I am not! Mr Kinsmoor shall know it--and Mr Farquhar shall know it too, if he has eyes to see!
She almost gasped at the speed with which she had reached and passed the point of decision. She would not try to stop Mr Kinsmoor's desire; far from it! She would try to fan its flames red hot, until Mr Kinsmoor craved her honest, faithful love more than any man had ever craved the most seductive poison a French beauty could offer!
She looked back for a fleeting moment at the time, a full few seconds ago, when she had not intended to make Mr Kinsmoor love her most intensely--but there was nothing there to which she might have turned back, even had she wished. She must rush ahead, then; and her devoted love for her succession of nonexistent husbands had trained her well. If a good, kind man was in love with her, she must love and honour him with full devotion, even if he was a dreaded weakling--for surely weakness was a less serious fault than nonexistence!
Agatha glanced again at Mr Farquhar. Her soul stood up in defiance of him and all he stood for. She cast away the last of her fears and scruples straight in his sneering face. Yes, rather than let Mr Farquhar prevail and ruin Mr Kinsmoor's shy, kind heart, she would even love a weakling!
Agatha turned again towards Mr Kinsmoor, gave him another bright smile, and took pleasure in seeing the result in his wide-open eyes and mouth. She had no experience with feminine wiles and coyness, but her heart now gave her some small instruction in the ways of fascinating a man.
"Mr Kinsmoor, I confess I have teased you," she said. "I'm afraid I have been very saucy indeed. Will you forgive me?"
"Er--Miss Goodwin! Of course!" said Mr Kinsmoor, looking more than a bit confused as to what he must forgive. "I--I should think it quite impossible for you to commit any unforgivable offence! Er--I mean--not that I have ever known you to commit any offence at all!"
Agatha gave a brief laugh, but ended it with a great, grateful smile. Her heart was truly touched by the honour of Mr Kinsmoor's complete confidence in her virtue. A weakling who could say such a thing, she began to feel, might be quite tolerable after all--or even much more than tolerable.
Agatha's heart, evidently quite pleased at her first small steps in fascination, promptly gave her more advanced instruction. "Mr Kinsmoor," she said, gazing straight into his eyes, "I assure you that my opinion of your inability to commit unforgivable offences is quite as high as yours of mine. And I dare say I devoutly hope that throughout our lives we shall earnestly strive to avoid committing any offences at all against each other. Should we ever fail, then I hope that we shall promptly forgive one another with the greatest sincerity of which loving hearts are capable."
She almost thought she heard Mr Kinsmoor gasp in disbelief. She was quite sure she heard Mr Farquhar snort loudly in derision. She felt herself blushing and growing hot in face, fearing she had come far too close to seeming to propose marriage to Mr Kinsmoor, in violation of a lady's most serious duty to await proposals from gentlemen.
"See here, Kinsmoor," said Mr Farquhar, "there'll be time enough to laugh at desperate, virtuous virgins issuing thinly veiled proposals of marriage when we get back from France. By then, I dare say, you'll never think an Englishwoman worth looking at again--especially a horse-faced, stick-figured, aging English virgin!"
Lightning struck and thunder roared within Miss Goodwin's heart. No, Mr Farquhar would not take Mr Kinsmoor to France and ruin him! Rather than allow it, she would take up a sword and fight Mr Farquhar to the death! She would show Mr Farquhar that an English virgin could quite well do the work of a French beauty: Joan of Arc!
She looked straight into Mr Kinsmoor's eyes, silently begging him to love her more and more. "Mr Kinsmoor, I beg you," she said, "do not go to France with this person, whoever he may be, who has such contempt for the flower of English maidenhood." A flower I shall offer you with all my heart and all my good will, her eyes pleaded with him to see, if only you will do me the honour of marrying me--and not go to France with Mr Farquhar!
Mr Kinsmoor, alas, did not assure her at once that he thought the flower of English maidenhood superior to all the charms of France. Instead he said, "Er--Miss Goodwin, there must be some mistake. This is not some person unknown to you; this is a man whom you have met many times, Mr Rupert Farquhar."
"Good evening, Mr Farquhar," said Agatha, not extending her hand. "I have not had the pleasure of your acquaintance." This was perfectly true, though she had indeed met him many times.
"See here!" Mr Farquhar cried out for all to hear, his face hot with anger at being crossed by an insignificant, boring English virgin. "My dear Miss Goodwin, this is nonsense! Of course you know who I am! We have met on many occasions! I am amazed at your insolence in saying you have not had the pleasure of my acquaintance!"
Agatha took a deep breath before speaking. She had never fought a man to the death before, even in words alone, but she would do it now. She raised the sword of her tongue and moved in for the kill.
"Sir, I assure you," she said in a rather louder voice than she had used before, "though we have indeed met many times, never once have I had the pleasure of your acquaintance." Her voice rose in a crescendo as she struck: "And yet, sir, I have far more nearly had the pleasure, than I have ever had the honour of your acquaintance!"
Remarks and even squeals were heard on all sides. All eyes were upon Mr Farquhar and Miss Goodwin. Open gladiatorial combats were rare in Grandison Hall, and some at least in the assembly surely would not wish to miss one when it occurred.
Mr Farquhar stared at Agatha as if she were some low insect he wished to crush with his boot. "Kinsmoor," he said, "I see that Miss Goodwin is disinclined to engage in conversation. We shall see how she prefers to be commented upon from a short distance."
He strode a few paces away, turned, and faced directly towards Agatha, as if prepared to engage her in a duel. In reality, Agatha knew, he intended to engage in one of the most repellent and offensive practices in the arsenal of the male sex: that of making unfavourable comments upon the appearance and character of ladies in their hearing, while giving the ladies no opportunity to respond or to end the commentary. The audience murmured in growing anticipation.
"Kinsmoor, do you wish to cast the first stone?" Mr Farquhar called out.
Agatha noticed that Mr Kinsmoor had not joined Mr Farquhar in his duelling position. "Er--I should not wish to cast a stone at Miss Goodwin," he said. "I should rather call her--er--a remarkably distinguished and quite striking-looking girl."
Mr Farquhar snorted out loud and laughed. "Rather far past her girlhood, I should say," he remarked, "but I dare say most distinguished indeed. Miss Goodwin is distinguished from all others, even of her own sex, by the insolence of her manners, the extreme impertinence of her views, and the appalling sharpness of her tongue!" Agatha did not need to look at him to see the malice in his eyes and the loathsome sneer on his lips.
"But aside from these most remarkable and striking distinctions," Mr Farquhar went on at once, "I should be forced by the plain, flat, dreary facts before my eyes to call Miss Goodwin quite astonishingly plain in face, dreary in complexion, and wholly flat in figure!"
Agatha heard laughter from men and barely muffled shrieking from women; from Mr Kinsmoor, nothing. Mr Farquhar was deliberately trying to stab her in the heart, to murder her hope of happiness in full view of everyone in Grandison Hall, while Mr Kinsmoor feebly stood silent and failed to defend her honour! Agatha closed her eyes tight and covered her ears with her hands, unwilling to view or hear the horrid events any longer.
"Sir, you are much mistaken!" Agatha hardly heard the words, though they were loud. Of course she did not see who spoke them. The voice sounded like Mr Kinsmoor's voice, but surely it could not be. Mr Kinsmoor did not raise his voice in anger–and Mr Kinsmoor was far too weak to stand up to Mr Farquhar.
It was not Mr Kinsmoor, but who was it? Agatha must see, and know the man. She opened her eyes and unstopped her ears.
It could not be Mr Kinsmoor--and yet it was. He alone stood before her, and he was speaking as he had never spoken before.
"I am quite certain, sir," Mr Kinsmoor called out to Mr Farquhar, "that if only one were to see Miss Goodwin smile upon one--and to have one's breath fairly taken away by the loveliness of her smile--then one would see no flaw at all in her face or figure--nor, what is more, in her heart!"
Oh, my dear Mr Kinsmoor! Agatha's heart, pierced with love, cried out within her. Mr Kinsmoor had delayed, but he had defended her honour at last. What was more, he had now issued a plain declaration of his love for her, in the presence of clouds of witnesses before the heavenly throne, to say nothing of the assembly in Grandison Hall! Could these words, which Mr Kinsmoor had dared to speak without fear of who might hear, be the words of a weakling?
"Miss Goodwin," Mr Kinsmoor addressed her in a voice that seemed almost commanding, "you must allow me to apologize for the shockingly contemptuous and outrageous speech of Mr Farquhar, in whose company you will no longer find me!"
I'v,e won! Agatha's heart cried out in joy and almost disbelief. I've saved Mr Kinsmoor! I've defeated Mr Farquhar! Only a faint hint of the truth, as yet, whispered to her: Mr Farquhar had defeated himself, and Mr Kinsmoor had saved himself from him.
Her heart instructed her, and she obeyed. "But, Mr Kinsmoor," she said, moving closer to him and giving him a full, broad smile of genuine admiration, "you have nothing whatever to apologize for! Quite the contrary!"
"I have indeed," he insisted. "I have been too long under the sway of Mr Farquhar, whose character I have tried in vain to think that of a decent man. Worse yet, I have delayed far too long in declaring my extreme admiration and love for you! Miss Goodwin, think me a fool if you must, but my love for you will go down with me to the grave!"
"Mr Kinsmoor! I most certainly do not think you a fool!" Her heart racing on like runaway horses, pounding as fast and hard as their thundering hooves, she forced herself to say what more must be said, in the presence of all the hosts of men and angels. "I admit I once thought you a weakling--but I think so no longer, and I am most heartily ashamed of myself for ever having thought so at all!"
"Let us see whether you will soon think Mr Kinsmoor a coward, then," Mr Farquhar intruded. "Kinsmoor, I have heard from your lips a plain declaration that you believe me not to be a decent man. I intend to avenge this outrageous insult. I challenge you to a duel at twenty paces."
Agatha barely kept herself from shrieking. She had no great admiration for the generality of her sex, but women at least did not duel with pistols. Men, dreadful creatures unmindful of the preciousness of life, were far too eager to use weapons.
Now Mr Farquhar would surely kill Mr Kinsmoor in a duel, and Agatha would go down to the grave alone after all. She almost cried aloud, "No, Mr Kinsmoor! Do not fight him!" She knew it would not do. Men did not wish to have women decide such matters for them.
Agatha had not, perhaps, thought quite so much, nor quite so favourably, of Almighty God in recent years as was fitting for a parson's daughter. She had not God's excessive patience with the evils of this world, unlike her father. "All things work together for good to those who love God," her father was fond of saying, "even the evils that He, in His mysterious Providence, sees fit to permit."
Agatha was not nearly so sure of this as her father, but surely only God could save Mr Kinsmoor now, and she could not neglect her only hope. "O God," she whispered, "save Mr Kinsmoor! Please forgive me for any wrong I've done! Help me stop forgetting you so often, and stop judging your work harshly--whatever you wish--but please, whatever you do, save Mr Kinsmoor!"
Dead silence gripped the assembly. All lips were still, all eyes and ears were turned to hear Mr Kinsmoor's reply to the challenge. At least to Agatha's anguished heart, the reply seemed dreadfully long in coming.
"Farquhar," Mr Kinsmoor said at last, "if you intend to murder me, I shall not condone your crime by engaging you in a duel. If you have a pistol on your person, you may shoot me if you insist--in the back, as befits a man of your character, for I shall now turn away from you. I only beg you, do not shoot Miss Goodwin too."
He turned away from Mr Farquhar and looked Agatha straight in the face, though she could not see him well for tears of joy. "Miss Goodwin," he said, slowly and calmly, "would you care to accompany me for a walk along the avenue? The evening air, I believe, will be remarkably fine tonight."
Agatha could not speak at once. Her bosom rose and fell more largely than it had ever done when she had thought herself doomed to be a maiden aunt forever, and she trembled with delight too great for speech. At last she made herself say the words: "Mr Kinsmoor, I believe it will be the finest air I have ever breathed in my life, and I accept your offer of a walk with all my heart."
Mr Farquhar, whether owing to disinclination to shoot a man in the back or merely to lack of a pistol at hand, did not shoot Mr Kinsmoor. Agatha walked out with Mr Kinsmoor in the evening twilight, along the magnificent, tree-lined main avenue of the Grandison Hall grounds. Once they had gone a little distance from the hall, Mr Kinsmoor wasted no time.
"Miss Goodwin," he said, "you cannot be ignorant of my purpose in wishing to speak with you alone. I have delayed far too long already in declaring my great admiration and love for you. My fears have crippled me, but they will do so no longer. Miss Goodwin, my heart is all yours, if you but say the word. Will you marry me?"
"Oh, Mr Kinsmoor!" Agatha cried. "I know now that I, too, have been crippled by fear! I feared you were a weakling! It was false, wholly false! You have shown the strength of character I have always desired in a man! Yes, I will marry you! I will be utterly thrilled to marry you!"
They did not know whether anyone in Grandison Hall might be watching them from afar, nor did they care. Their love for one another drove all else from their minds as they embraced and kissed.
*******
Once they were engaged, Miss Goodwin and Mr Kinsmoor did learn to call one another "Agatha" and "David." They waited no longer than necessary to marry, and Agatha was surprised at how many people accepted invitations to the wedding. Perhaps some were moved largely by curiosity to see again the gladiatrix who had fought Mr Farquhar in Grandison Hall, but Agatha was too happy to care. Mr Farquhar was not invited, and did not attend; he had vanished, presumably to France, where he had lain with beauties before and would no doubt do so again.
Almost before they knew it, Agatha and David had vowed lifelong fidelity to one another, had walked down the aisle of the church together, had said good-bye to those in attendance. Their friends, old and new, would visit them at home in the coming days; the gladiatrix-viewers would go their way, having seen what they came to see.
And now, at last, the wedding night was upon them. Agatha felt herself blushing in anticipation, and the blush was spreading throughout her whole body, as she entered her bridal chamber, David's bedroom in the Kinsmoor ancestral home.
And now her wedding gown was off, her nightgown was on, and David approached her. Their lips met, and David raised his hand to Agatha's bosom.
Agatha's small bosoms, though inconsequential in the eyes of the world, were by no means wholly flat as Mr Farquhar had alleged. They were rather pleasantly rounded, and were crowned by most delightfully excitable twin protuberances, now fully erect in anticipation. When David began to caress one of them through her nightgown, Agatha felt a thrill such as she had never known before.
David's caresses seemed surprisingly skilled. Agatha felt a tremor of revulsion at a horrid thought: What if Mr Farquhar had succeeded in corrupting David, in leading him to succumb to the allurements of French beauties who had given him skill in the ways of pleasing them? She tried to repel the thought--it could make no difference now, they were married for better or for worse--but she did not entirely succeed.
Still, David's caresses were most delightful, and so was his kissing. His tongue delicately sought admission into Agatha's mouth, foreshadowing the admission of his manhood into her womanly entryway. Agatha could almost imagine herself a French beauty--but a faithful, married French beauty--as her lips and tongue responded most ardently to his.
Agatha's entryway was at least as moist as her lips and tongue, and rather hotter than they. Too often she had imagined an imaginary husband entering her. Now, at last, it was really to happen. The hard, incongruous little protuberance above her entryway, almost like a tiny manhood, was signaling her extreme readiness to be entered by her beloved David.
"David, my love, please come into me!" Agatha begged, leading David by the hand to his bed. "Please unite with me as one flesh!"
"Agatha, my dearly beloved!" David cried. "How long have I yearned for this moment! How long, for years, without hope! I could never have imagined that you might ever accept me, and yet so you have! My dearest one, I am all yours!"
Agatha lay on the bed and opened herself to David's erect manhood. When it touched her virgin entryway, she gripped him hard with her arms and legs, and sought with all her might to admit him. Now he did not seem quite so skilled--perhaps, Agatha thought with quick relief, he had never done such a thing with a French beauty after all--but he was pressing forward manfully to conquer her virginity.
"David, my love, keep trying! I know you can succeed!" Agatha encouraged him. David eagerly complied.
And then, with a great effort, he had entered her! "Oh, my love!" Agatha cried. "I knew you could do it! Oh, yes indeed! I'm all yours forever!"
Never, in all her adventures with imaginary husbands, could Agatha have imagined the bliss of this moment. David was plainly no weakling now; his manly thrusts were fast bringing Agatha up to the apex of delight. Gripping him with all her might, moving her hips up and down in ever more rapid rhythm, she rejoiced in the glory of his manhood and her womanhood.
"Oh, my love! My beauty! My heart's desire!" David cried out as he reached the apex. "I could never have dreamed! Thank you! Thank you!" Wildly and fervently plunging Agatha with his delectable manhood, he brought her with him up to the apex of extreme delight, overwhelming her with astoundingly lovely trembling throughout her whole body.
Long they lay in the aftermath, savouring the blessing of their union. Then, while still they lay united, David spoke to her with what seemed a bit of his old, weak hesitancy.
"Agatha, my love," he said, "I have a confession to make. I hope you can find it in your heart to forgive me."
Agatha opened her eyes wide in surprise, but smiled at him. "I presume you have not been guilty of the unforgivable sin," she said. "If you--er, for example, if you had lain with French beauties at Mr Farquhar's insistence, I could--I could readily forgive you, upon your assurance that you were never to do so again."
"Oh, no, I have not!" David exclaimed. "But--well, I fear I have come far too close to doing so, and for a most lamentable reason."
Agatha breathed a silent sigh of relief at David's assurance that he had not sinned with French beauties. "Please explain," she said. "The sin of coming too close to lying with French beauties, while not really doing so, will be fully in my power to forgive."
"I most sincerely hope so," David said. "Well, you see--when I was most reluctant to believe that you could ever be mine, it was not only because I admired you so greatly and thought myself unworthy of you. It was also because I--er--I feared I should prove inadequate as a man--as a husband."
Agatha laughed. "A most unfounded fear!" she assured him.
"Well, but I did not think it unfounded. And because of my fear, I--er--I sought advice from Mr Farquhar, whose--er--whose manly prowess was quite well known."
"Such manly prowess as his, I can quite well do without!" Agatha exclaimed.
"I am sure of it," David said, "but I did, regrettably, seek his advice. He explained to me, in detail, the methods of pleasing a French beauty, and he advised me to--er--to employ those methods on a journey with him to France."
"But you did not."
"No, but I would have done--if only he had not forced me to stand up for your honour, in defiance of him, at Grandison Hall! We were to leave for France soon after! And so we would have done--if not for his outrageous, unforgivable insults to you, whom I had long admired more than any other woman!"
Agatha could not keep herself from laughing loudly for joy at David's narrow escape from Mr Farquhar's clutches, and at her own sudden recognition that her father had been right after all about what good could come from the evils of this world. When she could stop laughing, she told David her thought.
"It seems," she said, "that we have a great deal to thank Mr Farquhar for--though he would never have wished it! Shall we write to him in France, expressing our gratitude for his unintended benefactions?" She laughed again.
"Er--perhaps he would not be glad, and he might even be offended, to receive such a missive," David responded. "But surely we ought to keep him in our thoughts--and, above all, in our prayers!" They gazed upon one another; they smiled; they kissed, long and deeply, in earnest of years of wedded bliss to come.
