"Then love must supply all. And so it has, and so it will. Has not our honeymoon, as they vulgarly call it, lasted nearly a year?"
"It shall last for ever!" said Clara. Then after a pause, which was filled up as lovers' pauses usually are, she added. "But the worst blow of all was the loss of your own book;—that dear poetry you had written. If we had but kept a copy of it, we might have passed many hours of these winter evenings in reading it. But then," she added, with a smile and a sigh at the same time, "we should have wanted a candle."
"We talk—we gossip," said Henry, "which is much better. I hear the sweet tones of your voice; you sing me a song, or you break suddenly out into that heavenly laugh of yours. What is there not in that musical, jubilee laugh? When I hear it, angel mine, I am not only delighted, I muse, I meditate, I am rapt. How much of character is there in a laugh! You know no man till you have heard him laugh—till you know when and how he will laugh. There are occasions—there are humours when a man with whom we have been long familiar, shall quite startle and repel us, by breaking out into a laugh which comes manifestly right from his heart, and which yet we had never heard before. Even in fair ladies with whom I have been much pleased, I have remarked the same thing. As in many a heart a sweet angel slumbers unseen till some happy moment awakens it, so there sleeps often in gracious and amiable characters, deep in the background, a quite vulgar spirit, which starts into life when something rudely comical penetrates into the less frequented chambers of the mind. Our instinct teaches us that in that being there lies something we must take heed of.
"As to that young and thoughtless publisher," continued Henry, "who became bankrupt and ran off with my glorious manuscript, he, no doubt, did us good service; for how easily might my intercourse with him, while the book was being printed, have led to our discovery? Your father has not yet, be assured, relinquished his pursuit of us—my passport would have been examined again with severer scrutiny—something, no doubt, would have led to the suspicion that the name I bear is assumed. We should have been separated. So, angel mine, we are happy as we are—most happy!"
It had now grown dark, and the fire was burned out; a candle to talk by would have been certainly superfluous: so they retired early to their sleeping apartment. Here they could continue their chat in the dark, quite heedless of the heavy fall of snow that was encumbering their windows.
Chapter II.
Next morning, at approach of dawn, Clara hastened up to run to the stove, to awake the sparks in the ashes. Henry soon came to her assistance, and they laughed like children, as, with all their efforts, the flame would not come. At last, with much puffing and blowing, the shavings kindled, and slips of wood were most artistically laid on so as to heat the little stove without any waste of the precious store. "You see, Henry dear," said Clara, "there is hardly enough for to-morrow, and then"——
"A fresh supply must be had," said her husband, in a tone as if this matter of supply was the simplest thing in the world; whereas he well knew, that whatever stock of money remained to them, must be reserved for the still more essential article of food. After breakfast, he again took up his journal. "How I long to come to that page which records how you and I, dearest, ran away with one another."
"O Heaven!" cried Clara, "how strange, how unexpected as that eventful moment! For some days my father had shown a certain ill-humour towards me, and had spoken in a quite unusual manner. He had before expressed his surprise at your frequent visits; now he did not name you, but talked at you, and spoke continually of young men who refused to know their own position. If I was silent on these occasions he was angry; and if I spoke it was still worse: he grew more and more bitter. One morning, just as I was going out in the carriage to pay some visits, my faithful maid ran down the steps after me, and, under pretence of adjusting my dress, whispered into my ear that all was discovered—that my desk had been broken open, and your letters found—and that, in a few hours, I was to be sent off a prisoner to an aunt in a distant part of the country. How sudden was my resolution! I had not ridden far before I alighted from the carriage, under pretence of buying something at a trinket-shop. I sent the coachman and servant away, bidding them return for me in at hour, and then"——
"And then," interrupted Henry, "how delighted was I, how almost terrified with joy, to see you suddenly enter my apartments! I had just returned from my ambassador, and had by good chance some blank passports with me; I filled one up with the first name that occurred; and then, without further preparation, we entered a hired carriage, crossed the borders, were married, and were happy."