Long, long they remained in that still trance of joy, but at last Elsie withdrew herself, laughing, from his arms, sat down beside him, and they began to talk of their future home. He told her it would be indeed a cabin in the backwoods of Maryland; but not a hunter’s cabin, as she fancifully supposed. Oh, no! but a country doctor’s dwelling, in a new settlement. And that he would not return at eve in the hunter’s picturesque costume, with a gun and a nine-antlered deer across his shoulders, but upon the back of a stout mule, with a country doctor’s saddle-bags behind him. How would she like that?
“Oh, very well, dearest Magnus! for then you will be saving life instead of taking it. Oh, yes, I do like—I do love—your profession, Magnus. Since you must have one, I like it better than any other you could have chosen. I think physicians do more disinterested good than any other set of men on earth. I will not even except the preachers. Oh, yes! I do love your profession, dear Magnus, and love you better, if possible, for being a poor country doctor. God love and bless you! When you shall have come home tired, from your long round—oh, you shall have sweet repose, love—indeed you shall! God bids me to assure you that you shall. Whatever our cabin home may be, I can make it a little haven of repose—a little heaven of bliss for you. Oh, indeed I do not fear; my whole full soul assures me that we shall be happy and victorious over fate. Let me kiss your eyes—you kissed mine just now, so sweetly. God bless those grand eyes! Oh, Magnus, can a cabin or a garb of homespun hide the light, the greatness that is in you? Oh, Magnus, I saw a king and several princes of the blood when I was presented at court by General Armstrong; but their foreheads were low and receding, their presence had the strut without the dignity of majesty. Oh, Magnus, their kingly crown could not have given either that magnificent forehead of yours. Oh, Magnus, there is something greater in you than any surrounding you can have. Do not any more dread that I shall be either pained or revolted at anything in the circumstances of our condition. The rough walls of a log cabin will not shock or sadden me.”
“No, darling, for the rough walls of our log cabin, like the rough bark of an oak tree, has something really picturesque about it; but”—said he, in a half-sorrowful, half-comic way—“the pots and kettles, the mops and brooms!”
“What! the humble little household gods and goddesses that set up no pretension to worship, or even to honorable mention, and yet confer so much benefit? No, indeed. I have a kindly feeling for all such. Mine, if they can’t be beautiful, shall be neat and pretty. Oh, don’t you remember when we were children, and used to run in out of the snow to old Aunt Polly’s kitchen, and how she’d press us in to help her every time she could? Oh, I know a great deal about cooking, and I always had a turn for housekeeping.”
He arose, took her hand, and raised her up, and looked at her from head to foot, as she stood—that delicate, beautiful girl, in her elegant ball dress of gossamer crape over white satin, diamonds sparkling on her arms and neck, as he had said, like icicles upon snow. He surveyed her, from her white rose-wreathed auburn hair to the tip of the white satin slipper. He clasped her hand, and looked at it.
“I know,” she said, “what you are thinking of again—‘Elsie must doff this dress, and this style of dress, for some years to come’; but do not fear, within ten years, and by the time that the beauty of your love has matured, Elsie will weave a more elegant dress than this, when her husband’s talents shall have ‘achieved greatness.’ And this little hand that you look at so fondly, so sadly—‘this pure, fresh, delicate thing, a jewel itself,’ as you called it just now—under this soft, white cushion of flesh are nerves and sinews of steel. I am very strong, dear Magnus, very strong every way. And I can work; this hand shall toil and retain its beauty, because you prize it, too.”
He clasped her again to his breast, and drew her white arms up around his neck. And then that notion of isolation came upon her again like a fond superstition, and she whispered:
“I do not want neighbors or friends where we live, love. I want only you. I want no one that can take me off from you. It is late. Shall I go?”
“Yes, dear love,” she answered, untwining her arms from about his neck.