[CHAPTER XV.]
How sweet are the Surrey lanes and woods, especially round about Godalming! Innumerable are the pictures which artists have found there and fixed upon canvas to delight and instruct. In spring and summer peeps of fairyland reveal themselves almost at every turn. Small forests of straight and stately trees are there, full of solemn visions, lifting one's thoughts heavenward, and attuning the soul to more than earthly glory. The earth is carpeted with wonders, and the air is fragrant with subtle perfumes. The gentle declivities are clothed in beauty, and the wondrous variety of greens and browns are a marvel to behold.
It was a balmy night, and the skies were full of stars. A clear pool reflected them, and Nansie and Kingsley stood upon the rustic bridge and looked down in silence and love and worship.
"In the method of my education, my dear Nansie," said Kingsley, as they walked from the bridge into the stillness of the woods, "I recognize now one end."
"What end, Kingsley?" asked Nansie, looking up at him in hope.
"Nothing particular," said Kingsley. He spoke with his customary lightness, but there was a dash of seriousness in his voice, not as though he was troubled by the reflections which were passing through his mind, but with a dim consciousness that something better than he was able to accomplish might have been evolved. "That seems to me to have been the method of it--nothing particular. Shall I try to explain myself?"
"Please, dear. But kiss me first."
"Even in this kiss, my own dear wife," said Kingsley, "which, in what it means to me, all the gold in the world could not purchase-- Ah, Nansie, dear, how truly I love you!"
"And I you, Kingsley, with all the strength of my heart and soul."
"That is the beauty of it, and it is that which makes it unpurchasable. It is my love for you, and yours for me; it is my faith in you and yours in me, springing out of my heart and soul as it springs out of yours, that makes me feel how inexpressibly dear you are to me, and to know that my spiritual life would not have been complete without you. But I am flying off at a tangent again."