Rachel wrote and secured rooms at Rydal and a month after the men's meeting mentioned in the last chapter, they started off for the North.
What the sight of the beauty that now surrounded them was to Rachel can be imagined. She told Luke that she had seen nothing that could be called beautiful ever since coming to Trowsby, with the exception, she took pains to add, of her primroses and hyacinths in the little garden of which she was inordinately proud.
To sit by the Lake in the cool of the evening and watch the lights and shadows on the mountains, was positive bliss to Rachel. She tried to make Luke revel in it as much as she did, but alas, his thoughts were still engrossed with his parish, not withstanding all Rachel's efforts to make him forget it.
"It will be so much better for the parish as well as for you if you will only put it away from your mind," she said.
But Luke still persisted in saying that his work was his life and that it was the most interesting of all subjects to him. Happily there was a friend of his staying at Rydal with whom he went long excursions, leaving Rachel to the luxury of beauty and her happy thoughts. These excursions she felt were the only things that interested Luke or turned his thoughts away from his parish, with the exception of the many books he had brought with him making their luggage over weight. Rachel had sighed as she had caught sight of him trying to force them into his suitcase; but she knew he would not be happy without them.
The anniversary of their wedding took place while at the Lakes. Rachel wondered if the day meant anything special to her husband, and waited some time before she reminded him of it. They were walking on their way to Grassmere when she said:
"Luke do you remember what day this is?"
"To-day? No, what?"
"You mean to say you don't remember?" said Rachel incredulously.
Luke looked concerned.