"Won't it be fun to pretend we are children again?" Elisabeth exclaimed.
"Great fun; and I don't think it will need much pretending, do you know?" replied Christopher, who saw deeper sometimes than Elisabeth did, and now realized that it was only when they two became as little children—he by ceasing to play Providence to her, and she by ceasing to play Providence to herself—that they had at last caught glimpses of the kingdom of heaven.
So they walked hand in hand to Caleb Bateson's cottage, as they had so often walked in far-off, childish days; and the cottage looked so exactly the same as it used to look, and Caleb and his wife and Mrs. Hankey were so little altered by the passage of time, that it seemed as if the shadow had indeed been put back ten degrees. And so, in a way, it was, by the new spring-time which had come to Christopher and Elisabeth. They were both among those beloved of the gods who are destined to die young—not in years but in spirit; her lover as well as herself was what Elisabeth called "a fourth-dimension person," and there is no growing old for fourth-dimension people; because it has already been given to them to behold the vision of the cloud-clad angel, who stands upon the sea and upon the earth and swears that there shall be time no longer. They see him in the far distances of the sunlit hills, in the mysteries of the unfathomed ocean, and their ears are opened to the message that he brings; for they know that in all beauty—be it of earth, or sea, or sky, or human souls—there is something indestructible, immortal, and that those who have once looked upon it shall never see death. Such of us as make our dwelling-place in the world of the three dimensions, grow weary of the sameness and the staleness of it all, and drearily echo the Preacher's Vanitas vanitatum; but such of us as have entered into the fourth dimension, and have caught glimpses of the ideal which is concealed in all reality, do not trouble ourselves over the flight of time, for we know we have eternity before us; and so we are content to wait patiently and joyfully, in sure and certain hope of that better thing which, without us, can not be made perfect.
It was with pride and pleasure that Mr. and Mrs. Bateson received their guests. The double announcement that Christopher was the lost heir of the Farringdons (for Elisabeth had insisted on his making this known), and that he was about to marry Elisabeth, had given great delight all through Sedgehill. The Osierfield people were proud of Elisabeth, but they had learned to love Christopher; they had heard of her glory from afar, but they had been eye-witnesses of the uprightness and unselfishness and nobility of his life; and, on the whole, he was more popular than she. Elisabeth was quite conscious of this; and—what was more—she was glad of it. She, who had so loved popularity and admiration, now wanted people to think more of Christopher than of her. Once she had gloried in the thought that George Farringdon's son would never fill her place in the hearts of the people of the Osierfield; now her greatest happiness lay in the fact that he filled it more completely than she could ever have done, and that at Sedgehill she would always be second to him.
"Deary me, but it's like old times to see Master Christopher and Miss Elisabeth having tea with us again," exclaimed Mrs. Bateson, after Caleb had asked a blessing; "and it seems but yesterday, Mrs. Hankey, that they were here talking over Mrs. Perkins's wedding—your niece Susan as was—with Master Christopher in knickers, and Miss Elisabeth's hair down."
Mrs. Hankey sighed her old sigh. "So it does, Mrs. Bateson—so it does; and yet Susan has just buried her ninth."
"And is she quite well?" asked Elisabeth cheerfully. "I remember all about her wedding, and how immensely interested I was."
"As well as you can expect, miss," replied Mrs. Hankey, "with eight children on earth and one in heaven, and a husband as plays the trombone of an evening. But that's the worst of marriage; you know what a man is when you marry him, but you haven't a notion what he'll be that time next year. He may take to drinking or music for all you know; and then where's your peace of mind?"
"You are not very encouraging," laughed Elisabeth, "considering that I am going to be married at once."
"Well, miss, where's the use of flattering with vain words, and crying peace where there is no peace, I should like to know? I can only say as I hope you'll be happy. Some are."