XAPRIL 20.
YESTERDAY I felt better than I have done since the accident.I ran about the house quite cheerily, for me.I wanted to see mother for something, and flew singing into the parlor, where I had left her shortly before.But she was not there, and Dr.Elliott was.I started back, and was about to leave the room, but he detained me.
"Come in, I beg of you," he said, his voice grow mg hoarser and hoarser."Let us put a stop to this.""To what?" I asked, going nearer and nearer, and looking up into his face, which was quite pale.
"To your evident terror of being alone with me, of hearing me speak.
Let me assure you, once for all, that nothing would tempt me to annoy you by urging myself upon you, as you seem to fear I may be tempted to do.I cannot force you to love me, nor would I if I could.If you ever want a friend you will find one in me.But do not think of me as your lover, or treat me as if I were always lying in wait for a chance to remind you of it.That I shall never do, never.""Oh, no, of course not!" I broke forth, my face all in a glow, and tears of mortification raining down my cheeks."I knew you did not care for me I! knew you had got over it!"I don't know which of us began it, I don't think he did, and I am sure I did not, but the next moment I was folded all up in his great long arms, and a new life had begun!
Mother opened the door not long after, and seeing what was going on, trotted away on her dear feet as fast as she could.
APRIL 21.-I am too happy to write journals.To think how we love each other.
Mother behaves beautifully.
APRIL 25.-One does not feel like saying much about it, when one is as happy as I am.I walk the streets as one treading on air.I fly about the house as on wings.I kiss everybody I see.
Now that I look at Ernest (for he makes me call him so) with unprejudiced eyes, I wonder I ever thought him clumsy.And how ridiculous it was in me to confound his dignity and manliness with age!
It is very odd, however, that such a cautious, well-balanced man should have fallen in love with me that day at Sunday-school.And still stranger that with my headlong, impulsive nature, Ideliberately walked into love with him!
I believe we shall never get through with what we have to say to each other.I am afraid we are rather selfish to leave mother to herself every evening.
SEPT.5.-This has been a delightful summer.To be sure, we had to take the children to the country for a couple of months, but Ernest's letters are almost better than Ernest himself.I have written enough to him to fill a dozen books.We are going back to the city now.In his last letter Ernest says he has been home, and that his mother is delighted to hear of his engagement.He says, too, that he went to see an old lady, one of the friends of.his boyhood, to tell the news to her.
"When I told her," he goes on, "that I had found the most beautiful, the noblest, the most loving of human beings, she only said, 'Of course, of course!'
"Now you know, dear, that it is not at all of course, but the very strangest, most wonderful event in the history of the world."And then he described a scene he had just witnessed at the deathbed of a young girl of my own age, who left this world and every possible earthly joy, with a delight in the going to be with Christ, that made him really eloquent.Oh, how glad I am that God has cast in my lot with a man whose whole business is to minister to others! I am sure this will, of itself, keep him unworldly and unselfish.How delicious it is to love such a character, and how happy I shall be to go with him to sick-rooms and to dying-beds! He has already taught me that lessons learned in such scenes far outweigh in value what books and sermons, even, can teach.
And now, my dear old journal, let me tell you a secret that has to do with life, and not with death.
I am going to be married!
To think that I am always to be with Ernest! To sit at the table with him every day, to pray with him, to go to church with him, to have him all mine! I am sure that there is not another man on earth whom Icould love as I love him.The thought of marrying Ch---, I mean of having that silly, school-girl engagement end in marriage, was always repugnant to me.But I give myself to Ernest joyfully and with all my heart.
How good God has been to me! I do hope and pray that this new, this absorbing love, has not detached my.soul from Him, will not detach it.If I knew it would, could I, should I have courage to cut it off and cast it from me?
JAN.16, 1837.-Yesterday was my birthday, and to-day is my wedding-day.We meant to celebrate the one with the other, but Sunday would come this year on the fifteenth.
I am dressed, and have turned everybody out of this room, where Ihave suffered so much mortification, and experienced so much joy, that before I give myself to Ernest, and before I leave home forever, I may once more give myself away to God.I have been too much absorbed in my earthly love, and am shocked to find how it fills my thoughts.But I will belong to God.I will begin my married life in His fear, depending on Him to make me an unselfish, devoted wife.
JAN.25.-We had a delightful trip after the wedding was over.Ernest proposed to take me to his own home that I might see his mother and sister.He never has said that he wanted them to see me.But his mother is not well.I am heartily glad of it.
I mean I was glad to escape going there to be examined and criticised.Every one of them would pick at me, I am sure, and Idon't like to be picked at.
We have a home of our own, and I am trying to take kindly to housekeeping.Ernest is away a great deal more than I expected he would be.I am fearfully lonely.Aunty comes to see me as often as she can, and I go there almost every day, but that doesn't amount to much.As soon as I can venture to it, I shall ask Ernest to let me invite mother to come and live with us.It is not right for her to be left all alone so I hoped he would do that himself.But men are not like women.We think of everything.
