* * * Ours was a brief engagement. Laurence wished it so; and I disputed not—I never disputed with him in any thing. Besides, I was not happy at home—my sisters did not understand him. They jested with me because he was grave and reserved—even subject to moody fits sometimes. They said, "I should have a great deal to put up with; but it was worth while, for Mr. Shelmerdine's grand estate atoned for all." My Laurence! as if I had ever thought whether he were rich or poor! I smiled, too, at my sisters' jests about his melancholy, and the possibility of his being "a bandit in disguise." None truly knew him—none but I! Yet I was half afraid of him at times; but that was only from the intensity of my love. I never asked him of his for me—how it grew—or why he had so long concealed it; enough for me that it was there. Yet it was always calm: he never showed any passionate emotion, save one night—the night before our wedding day.
I went with him to the gate myself, walking in the moonlight under the holly trees. I trembled a little; but I was happy—very happy. He held me long in his arms ere he would part with me—the last brief parting ere we would have no need to part any more. I said, looking up from his face unto the stars, "Laurence, in our full joy, let us thank God, and pray Him to bless us."
His heart seemed bursting: he bowed his proud head, dropped it down upon my shoulder, and cried, "Nay, rather pray Him to forgive me. Adelaide, I am not worthy of happiness—I am not worthy of you."
He, to talk in this way! and about me! but I answered him soothingly, so that he might feel how dear was my love—how entire my trust.
He said, at last, half mournfully, "You are content to take me then, just as I am; to forgive my past—to bear with my present—to give hope to my future. Will you do this, my love, my Adelaide?"
I answered, solemnly, "I will." Then, for the first time, I dared to lift my arms to his neck; and as he stooped I kissed his forehead. It was the seal of this my promise—which may God give me strength to keep evermore!
We were laughing to-day—Laurence and I—about first loves. It was scarcely a subject for mirth; but one of his bachelor friends had been telling us of a new-married couple, who, in some comical fashion, mutually made the discovery of each other's "first loves." I said to my husband, smiling happily, "that he need have no such fear." And I repeated, half in sport, the lines—
"'He was her own, her ocean treasure, cast
Like a rich wreck—her first love, and her last.'
So it was with your poor Adelaide." Touched by the thought, my gayety melted almost into tears. But I laughed them off, and added, "Come, Laurence, confess the same. You never, never loved any one but me?"