“Oh, no, we don’t,” she insisted. “There are lots of queer fancies in me that you’ll only find out by living with me—and, Oh, Paul! the fine, noble things I feel in you! But I can see the whole of them only by seeing you day by day. And then there are lots of things that aren’t in us, really, yet, but only planted. They’ll grow—we’ll grow—Paul, to-day is an epoch. We’ve passed a new milestone.”
“How do you mean?” he asked.
“The way we’ve felt—the way we’ve talked—of real things—out there in our own—” She laughed a little, a serene murmur of drollery which came to her when she was at peace. “We’ve been engaged since November, but we only got engaged to be married to-day—just as our wedding’s to be in June, but goodness knows when our marriage will be.”
Paul smiled at her tenderly. “If I’d known the date was so uncertain as that I shouldn’t have dared to go so far in my house-building.”
“Oh, it’s all right so far,” she reassured him, smiling; “but we must pitch in and finish it. Why, that’s just it, Paul—” she was struck with the aptness of her illustration—“that’s just it. We’ve got the rafters and joists up now; maybe before we’re married, if we’re good, we can get the roof on so it won’t rain on us; but all the finishing, all that makes it good to live in, has got to be done after the wedding.”
He did not know exactly what she was talking about, but he made up for vagueness by fervor. “After we are married,” he cried, “I’ll move mountains and turn stones to gold.”
“But the first thing to do is to lay floors for us to walk on,” Lydia told him.
For answer, he drew her into his arms and closed her mouth with a kiss.