At last Time brings the bridal eve, and is blest as a benefactor.  The final arrangements are made; the bridegroom does depart; and Mrs. Berry lights the little bride to her bed.  Lucy stops on the landing where there is an old clock eccentrically correct that night.  ’Tis the palpitating pause before the gates of her transfiguration.  Mrs. Berry sees her put her rosy finger on the One about to strike, and touch all the hours successively till she comes to the Twelve that shall sound “Wife” in her ears on the morrow, moving her lips the while, and looking round archly solemn when she has done; and that sight so catches at Mrs. Berry’s heart that, not guessing Time to be the poor child’s enemy, she endangers her candle by folding Lucy warmly in her arms, whimpering; “Bless you for a darling! you innocent lamb!  You shall be happy!  You shall!”

Old Time gazes grimly ahead.

CHAPTER XXIX

Although it blew hard when Caesar crossed the Rubicon, the passage of that river is commonly calm; calm as Acheron.  So long as he gets his fare, the ferryman does not need to be told whom he carries:  he pulls with a will, and heroes may be over in half-an-hour.  Only when they stand on the opposite bank, do they see what a leap they have taken.  The shores they have relinquished shrink to an infinite remoteness.  There they have dreamed:  here they must act.  There lie youth and irresolution:  here manhood and purpose.  They are veritably in another land:  a moral Acheron divides their life.  Their memories scarce seem their own!  The Philosophical Geography (about to be published) observes that each man has, one time or other, a little Rubicon—­a clear or a foul water to cross.  It is asked him:  “Wilt thou wed this Fate, and give up all behind thee?” And “I will,” firmly pronounced, speeds him over.  The above-named manuscript authority informs us, that by far the greater number of caresses rolled by this heroic flood to its sister stream below, are those of fellows who have repented their pledge, and have tried to swim back to the bank they have blotted out.  For though every man of us may be a hero for one fatal minute, very few remain so after a day’s march even:  and who wonders that Madam Fate is indignant, and wears the features of the terrible Universal Fate to him?  Fail before her, either in heart or in act, and lo, how the alluring loves in her visage wither and sicken to what it is modelled on!  Be your Rubicon big or small, clear or foul, it is the same:  you shall not return.  On—­or to Acheron!- -I subscribe to that saying of The Pilgrim’s Scrip: 

“The danger of a little knowledge of things is disputable:  but beware the little knowledge of one’s self!”