The first few years of my married life were years of bliss to me.  I lived under a constant sense of happiness; a happiness that man can derive only from a union with a woman of whom his reason and principles as much approve, as his tastes and passion cherish.  I do not mean to be understood that the years which have succeeded were a whit less happy; for, in a certain sense, they have been more so, and have gone on increasing in happiness down to the present hour, but because time and use finally so far accustomed me to this intimate connection with purity, virtue, female disinterestedness and feminine delicacy, that I should have missed them, as things incorporated with my very existence, had I been suddenly deprived of my wife, quite as much as in the first years of my married life, I enjoyed them as things hitherto unknown to me.

As I ride over the fields of Clawbonny, even at this day, I recall with tranquil delight, and I trust with humble gratitude, the manner in which those blessed early years of our marriage passed.  That was the period when every thought of mine was truly shared by Lucy.  She accompanied me in my daily rides or drives, and listened to every suggestion that fell from my lips, with kind interest and the most indulgent attention, rendering me back thought for thought, feeling for feeling, laugh for laugh; and, occasionally, tear for tear.  Not an emotion could become aroused in my breast that it did not meet with its reflection in her’s; or a sense of the ludicrous be awakened, that her keen but chastened humour did not increase its effect by sympathy.  Those were the years in which were planned and executed the largest improvements for the buildings, pleasure-grounds, and fields of Clawbonny.  We built extensively, not only out-houses and stables better suited to our present means, and more enlarged mode of living, than those which existed in my father’s time, but, as has been stated before, we added to the dwelling, preserving its pleasing confusion and irregularity of architecture.  After passing the first summer which succeeded our marriage in this manner, I told Lucy it was time to stop building and improving my own place, in order that some attention might be bestowed on that she had inherited from Mrs. Bradfort, and which was also old family property.

“Do not think of it, Miles,” she said.  “Keep Riversedge in good order, and no more.  Rupert,” who was then living, and in possession, “will see that nothing goes to waste; but Clawbonny, dear Clawbonny, is the true home of a Wallingford—­and I am now a Wallingford, you will remember.  Should this precious boy of ours live to become a man, and marry, the old West-Chester property can be used by him, until we are ready to give him up possession, here.”

This plan has not been literally carried out; for Miles, my eldest son, lives with us at Clawbonny, in the summer; and his noisy boys are at this moment playing a game of ball in a field that has been expressly devoted to their amusements.