The party broke up. The footsteps of the company died away along the cobbled streets of Leicester. The night became a happy memory. The bride and bridegroom went dreaming homeward, life before them, the dewy freshness of June around them, and overhead the faded azure of the empty morning sky.
CHAPTER VIII
ROGUES AND VAGABONDS
The first thing that Bram and Nancy vowed to each other was that they would never accept anything but a joint engagement. It sounded so easy at first, but during the next four years many anxious moments were caused by that rose-flushed resolution of early married life. However, they did manage it, and not only that but they managed somehow to take with them on tour the baby girl who was born on the sixteenth of July, just a year and a month after they were married.
Letizia was born in a tiny cottage buried among the cherry orchards of Kent. The original Letizia’s letter on being informed of the proposed tribute to herself was characteristic:
Lebanon House
Brigham.
July 20th, 1890.
Dear Bram,
Why you should burden your wretched infant with the name that nearly eighty years ago was so unsuitably bestowed upon her great-grandmother I cannot imagine. I hope that the challenge you offer to Fate by calling any child Gladness will not be vented on her head.