A quiet repast, and a short interval of preparation before the start for a trip, only some miles from town, an easy drive, for a few days’ visit to where the sweet breath of the country blew; and then the elders standing at the door watching the departing vehicle, and the waving hands, as the wheels rattled along the echoing street; and then upstairs, for Aunt Fanny and Mrs Septimus to talk of their children, while Septimus Hardon roamed the streets.
“O, the bright lovely country!” cried Lucy, as the carriage rolled on between hedgerows here and there silvered with the scented May, whose fragrance was borne by the light breeze through the open windows. “O, the bright lovely country!” she cried; “am I not foolish, Arthur?” she sobbed; “but the tears will come, for I feel that this happiness cannot last!”
The word “Arthur” was spoken hesitatingly, as if it were strange to her lips, and she hardly dared to use it; her eyes were fixed for a moment upon those of her husband, and then she glided down to the bottom of the fly and kneeled at his feet, as he fondly parted the hair upon her broad forehead.
“You are not angry with me for being so childish?” she murmured.
“Angry!” he replied, and the tone in which he said that word was sufficient.
“Don’t think me foolish,” she said; “but let us walk a little here, where the grass borders the road; for it seems wrong to hurry past the lovely green trees, after the close misery of London. They are new to me, Arthur; and look! look! there are flowers, and birds; and see how the bright sunshine dances amongst the leaves. But, there,” she said sadly; “you smile at my folly, and forget what all this is to me, after years of prisoning London.”
But the next minute the fly had stopped, and, relieved of its load, resumed its way; and, happy and proud, Arthur Sterne looked down upon his newly-wedded wife, elate to see the pure, intense love of all that was beautiful in nature which emanated from this escaped prisoner of life; while Lucy was divided between delight of the scene around her, and reproach for her so-called indifference towards her husband. And so they walked, inhaling the sweets of the early summer afternoon, and finding in them joys known only to those who have escaped but freshly from the great City’s miseries. And still on and on, almost in silence, enveloped as they were in the happiness of the present.
“Listen!” cried Lucy, as she stopped suddenly, and laid a finger upon her husband’s lip—a finger now white and delicate, once fretted and work-worn. “Listen!” she whispered, “and close your eyes. Might not that be poor Jean’s lark?” and then both stood listening, as in those days of the past, when their prisoned souls had gazed up eagerly into the bright blue sky, and they had drunk in the pure gushing lay of the speckled songster.
“Tears, more tears, Lucy?” whispered the curate. “Are you not happy?”
No words came for a reply, nothing but a look; as the bright eyes brimmed over, and a sob rose from the burdened heart.