"Why, Ned!" she exclaimed in surprise, "I thought you were a man of your word!"
"And so I am, I trust," he said, smiling at her astonished look, then catching her right hand in his. "Is not this mine?" he asked: "did you not give it to me?—Let me see—nearly two years ago?"
"Yes, I did," she answered, laughing and blushing with pleasure and happiness: "you are right; it is yours. So you have every right to use it, and must do so."
"Ah!" he said, "'a wilful woman will have her way,' I see: there never was a truer saying. No, that won't do," as she seated herself with the desk on her lap: "put it on the table. I can't have you bending over to write on your lap, and so growing round-shouldered, especially in my service."
"Any thing to please you," she returned gayly, doing as he directed. "I suppose my right hand is not all of me that you lay claim to?"
"No, indeed! I claim you altogether, as my better and dearer half," he said, his tone changing from jest to earnest, and the light of love shining in his eyes.
She ran to him at that, put her arms round his neck, and laid her cheek to his. "No, Ned, I can't have you say that," she murmured, "you who are so good and wise, while I am such a silly and faulty thing, not at all worthy to be your wife. Whatever made you marry me?"
"Love," he answered, drawing her closer, and fondly caressing her hair and cheek,—"love that grows stronger and deeper with every day we live together, dearest."
"Dear Ned, my own dear husband!" she said, hugging him tighter. "Words could never tell how much I love you, or how I rejoice in your love for me: you are truly my other, my best, half, and I don't know how I could live without you."
"Our mutual love is a cause for great gratitude to God," he said reverently. "There are so many miserably unhappy couples, I feel that I can never be thankful enough for the little wife who suits me so entirely."