And so saying he kissed her, folding her in his arms, and, with a big tear filling each eye, she looked up, smiling unutterable affection, in his face. As they stood together in that embrace his eyes also filled with tears and his smile met hers, and they seemed wrapt for a moment in one angelic glory, and she felt the strain of his arm draw her closer.
Such moments come suddenly and are gone; but, remaining in memory, they are the lights that illuminate a dark and troublous retrospect for ever.
“We’ll make ourselves happy here, little Ally, and I—in spite of everything, my darling!—and I don’t know how it happened that I stayed away so long; but I walked with Harry further than I intended, and when he left me I loitered on Cressley Common for a time with my head full of business; and so, without knowing it, I was filling my poor little wife’s head with alarms and condemning her to solitude. Well, all I can do is to promise to be a good boy and to keep better hours for the future.”
“That’s so like you, you are so good to your poor, foolish little wife,” said Alice.
“I wish I could be, darling,” said he; “I wish I could prove one-half my love; but the time will come yet. I sha’n’t be so poor or powerless always.”
“But you’re not to speak so—you’re not to think that. It is while we are poor that I can be of any use,” she said, eagerly; “very little, very miserable my poor attempts, but nothing makes me so happy as trying to deserve ever so little of all the kind things my Ry says of me; and I’m sure, Charlie, although there may be cares and troubles, we will make our time pass here very happily, and perhaps we shall always look back on our days at Carwell as the happiest of our lives.”
“Yes, darling, I am determined we shall be very happy,” said he.
“And Ry will tell me everything that troubles him?”
Her full eyes were gazing sadly up in his face. He averted his eyes, and said—
“Of course I will, darling.”