He was trembling with deep emotion.
"Art thou happy, David ?" "Ay, lad, almost afraid of my happiness.

God make me worthy of it, and of her!" He lifted his eyes upwards; there was in them a new look, sweet and solemn, a look which expressed the satisfied content of a life now rounded and completed by that other dear life which it had received into and united with its own--making a full and perfect whole, which, however kindly and fondly it may look on friends and kindred outside, has no absolute need of any, but is complete in and sufficient to itself, as true marriage should be.

A look, unconsciously fulfilling the law--God's own law--that a man shall leave father and mother, brethren and companions, and shall cleave unto his wife, and "they two shall become one flesh." And although I rejoiced in his joy, still I felt half-sadly for a moment, the vague, fine line of division which was thus for evermore drawn between him and me of no fault on either side, and of which he himself was unaware.

It was but the right and natural law of things, the difference between the married and unmarried, which only the latter feel.

Which, perhaps, the Divine One meant them to feel--that out of their great solitude of this world may grow a little inner Eden, where they may hear His voice, "walking in the garden in the cool of the day." We went round John's garden; there was nothing Eden-like about it, being somewhat of a waste still, divided between ancient cabbage-beds, empty flower-beds, and great old orchard-trees, very thinly laden with fruit.
"We'll make them bear better next year," said John, hopefully.