“You will get no diploma,” he said.
“I am going to be married, sir,” I answered.
“I have heard—I have heard!” he continued, “and I think a marriage certificate will be the best diploma for you—Reverend Dr. Barr’s son, is it not?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Then, Miss, where will your Arminianism be? You will become a Calvinist!” And, with this Parthian fling, he left the room so quickly I had no opportunity for a denial.
After this event I returned home, and the days went by in a dream of happiness. Robert came every Friday or Saturday to Kendal, and we rode over to Windermere, if it was fine weather, and strolled about its laurel woods, whispering to each 103 other those words which lovers have always said, and always will say, even till time shall be no more—unless, the march of what is called “progress and efficiency” put love out of the question altogether. It was a wooing that fitted wonderfully into my happy girlhood, blending itself with my childhood’s memories, with the wind and the sun, and the mountains and lakes I loved. And I took with a grateful heart the joy sent me—a joy glorified by all the enchanting glamours and extravagant hopes of youth and love. It was always the old antiphony of love:
“I love you, sweet, how can you ever learn
How much I love you?” “You I love even so,
And so I learn it.” “Sweet, you cannot know
How fair you are.” “If fair enough to earn