“But that will not do, I will have it in words.  I will not be shorn of my delight”

That it should be a delight to him, was the very essence of her heaven.  “Tell me what to say,” she answered.  “How may I say it best?”

“Reginald Morton,” he began.

“Reginald,” she repeated it after him, but went no farther in naming him.

“Because I love you better than in the world—­”

“I do.”

“Ah, but say it”

“Because I love you, oh, so much better than all the world besides.”

“Therefore, my own, own husband—­”

“Therefore, my own, own—­,” Then she paused.

“Say the word”

“My own, own husband.”

“I will be your true wife”

“I will be your own true loving wife.”  Then he kissed her again.

“That,” he said, “is our little marriage ceremony under God’s sky, and no other can be more binding.  As soon as you, in the plentitude of your maiden power, will fix a day for the other one, and when we can get that over, then we will begin our little journey together.”

“But Reginald!”

“Well, dear!”

“You haven’t said anything.”

“Haven’t I?  I thought I had said it all.”

“But you haven’t said it for yourself!”

“You say what you want,—­and I’ll repeat it quite as well as you did.”

“I can’t do that.  Say it yourself.”

“I will be your true husband for the rest of the journey;—­by which I mean it to be understood that I take you into partnership on equal terms, but that I am to be allowed to manage the business just as I please.”

“Yes;—­that you shall,” she said, quite in earnest.

“Only as you are practical and I am vague, I don’t doubt that everything will fall into your hands before five years are over, and that I shall have to be told whether I can afford to buy a new book, and when I am to ask all the gentry to dinner.”

“Now you are laughing at me because I shall know so little about anything.”

“Come, dear; let us get over the stile and go on for another field, or we shall never get round the park.”  Then she jumped over after him, just touching his hand.  “I was not laughing at you at all.  I don’t in the least doubt that in a very little time you will know everything about everything.”

“I am so much afraid.”

“You needn’t be.  I know you well enough for that.  But suppose I had taken such a one as that young woman who was here with my poor cousin.  Oh, heavens!”

“Perhaps you ought to have done so.”

“I thank the Lord that hath delivered me.”

“You ought,—­you ought to have chosen some lady of high standing,” said Mary, thinking with ineffable joy of the stately dame who was not to come to Bragton.  “Do you know what I was thinking only the other day about it?—­that you had gone up to London to look for some proper sort of person.”