"You're satisfied with yours?" she said inquiringly, and with a glad look up into his face.
"More than satisfied! Milly, love, you are my greatest earthly treasure; dearer far to me now than the day we were married, though then I was sure I loved you as never man loved woman before."
"How you gladden my heart, my dearest and kindest of husbands," she said, in low, moved tones. "And my experience is the same as yours; I loved you dearly when we were married, but I love you ten times as dearly now. How sweet it is to live together as we do, with hearts so closely united, and ever sharing each other's joys and sorrows! Burdens thus divided are so much easier to bear, while joys are doubled in the sharing."
"Yes, it is so," he said.
"'Then come the wild weather—come sleet or come snow,
We will stand by each other, however it blow;
Oppression and sickness, and sorrow and pain,
Shall be to our true love as links to the chain.'"
They talked of their children, now three in number; of their various dispositions, and the best mode of managing and training each.