“And so you have,” said I, kissing a curl at her temple; “when you unbind it, my Charmian, it will cover you like a mantle.”

Now when I said this, for some reason she glanced up at me, sudden and shy, and blushed and slipped from my arms, and fled up the path like a nymph.

So we presently entered the cottage, flushed and panting, and laughing for sheer happiness.  And now she rolled up her sleeves, and set about preparing breakfast, laughing my assistance to scorn, but growing mightily indignant when I would kiss her, yet blushing and yielding, nevertheless.  And while she bustled to and fro (keeping well out of reach of my arm), she began to sing in her soft voice to herself: 

      “’In Scarlet town, where I was born,
        There was a fair maid dwellin’,
        Made every youth cry Well-a-way! 
        Her name was Barbara Allen.’”

“Oh, Charmian! how wonderful you are!”

      “’All in the merry month of May,
        When green buds they were swellin’—­’”

“Surely no woman ever had such beautiful arms! so round and soft and white, Charmian.”  She turned upon me with a fork held up admonishingly, but, meeting my look, her eyes wavered, and up from throat to brow rushed a wave of burning crimson.

“Oh, Peter!—­you make me—­almost—­afraid of you,” she whispered, and hid her face against my shoulder.

“Are you content to have married such a very poor man—­to be the wife of a village blacksmith?”

“Why, Peter—­in all the world there never was such another blacksmith as mine, and—­and—­there!—­the kettle is boiling over—­”

“Let it!” said I.

“And the bacon—­the bacon will burn—­let me go, and—­oh, Peter!”

So, in due time, we sat down to our solitary wedding breakfast; and there were no eyes to speculate upon the bride’s beauty, to note her changing color, or the glory of her eyes; and no healths were proposed or toasts drunk, nor any speeches spoken—­except, perhaps by my good friend—­the brook outside, who, of course, understood the situation, and babbled tolerantly of us to the listening trees, like the grim old philosopher he was.

In this solitude we were surely closer together and belonged more fully to each other, for all her looks and thoughts were mine, as mine were hers.

And, as we ate, sometimes talking and sometimes laughing (though rarely; one seldom laughs in the wilderness), our hands would stray to meet each other across the table, and eye would answer eye, while, in the silence, the brook would lift its voice to chuckle throaty chuckles and outlandish witticisms, such as could only be expected from an old reprobate who had grown so in years, and had seen so very much of life.  At such times Charmian’s cheeks would flush and her lashes droop—­as though (indeed) she were versed in the language of brooks.

So the golden hours slipped by, the sun crept westward, and evening stole upon us.