CHAPTER LXXVII.

MORE CONCERNING LOVE AND THE DREAM OF LIFE.

                      Happy the bonds that hold ye;
Sure they be sweeter far than liberty.
There is no blessedness but in such bondage;
Happy that happy chain; such links are heavenly.
                                       BEAUMONT and FLETCHER.

I will not describe the subsequent interviews between Leonard and his cousin, short and broken but precious as they were; nor that parting one in which hands were plighted, with the sure and certain knowledge that hearts had been interchanged. Remembrance will enable some of my readers to pourtray the scene, and then perhaps a sigh may be heaved for the days that are gone: Hope will picture it to others,—and with them the sigh will be for the days that are to come.

There was not that indefinite deferment of hope in this case at which the heart sickens. Leonard had been bred up in poverty from his childhood: a parsimonious allowance, grudgingly bestowed, had contributed to keep him frugal at College, by calling forth a pardonable if not a commendable sense of pride in aid of a worthier principle. He knew that he could rely upon himself for frugality, industry and a cheerful as well as a contented mind. He had seen the miserable state of bondage in which Margaret existed with her Aunt, and his resolution was made to deliver her from that bondage as soon as he could obtain the smallest benefice on which it was possible for them to subsist. They agreed to live rigorously within their means however poor, and put their trust in Providence. They could not be deceived in each other, for they had grown up together; and they knew that they were not deceived in themselves. Their love had the freshness of youth, but prudence and forethought were not wanting; the resolution which they had taken brought with it peace of mind, and no misgiving was felt in either heart when they prayed for a blessing upon their purpose. In reality it had already brought a blessing with it; and this they felt; for love when it deserves that name produces in us what may be called a regeneration of its own,—a second birth,— dimly but yet in some degree resembling that which is effected by Divine Love when its redeeming work is accomplished in the soul.

Leonard returned to Oxford happier than all this world's wealth or this world's honours could have made him. He had now a definite and attainable hope,—an object in life which gave to life itself a value. For Margaret, the world no longer seemed to her like the same earth which she had till then inhabited. Hitherto she had felt herself a forlorn and solitary creature, without a friend; and the sweet sounds and pleasant objects of nature had imparted as little cheerfulness to her as to the debtor who sees green fields in sunshine from his prison, and hears the lark singing at liberty. Her heart was open now to all the exhilarating and all the softening influences, of birds, fields, flowers, vernal suns and melodious streams. She was subject to the same daily and hourly exercise of meekness, patience, and humility; but the trial was no longer painful; with love in her heart, and hope and sunshine in her prospect, she found even a pleasure in contrasting her present condition with that which was in store for her.

In these our days every young lady holds the pen of a ready writer, and words flow from it as fast as it can indent its zigzag lines, according to the reformed system of writing,—which said system improves handwritings by making them all alike and all illegible. At that time women wrote better and spelt worse: but letter writing was not one of their accomplishments. It had not yet become one of the general pleasures and luxuries of life,—perhaps the greatest gratification which the progress of civilization has given us. There was then no mail coach to waft a sigh across the country at the rate of eight miles an hour. Letters came slowly and with long intervals between; but when they came, the happiness which they imparted to Leonard and Margaret lasted during the interval,—however long. To Leonard it was as an exhilarant and a cordial which rejoiced and strengthened him. He trod the earth with a lighter and more elated movement on the day when he received a letter from Margaret, as if he felt himself invested with an importance which he had never possessed till the happiness of another human being was inseparably associated with his own;

So proud a thing it was for him to wear
            Love's golden chain,
With which it is best freedom to be bound.1

1 DRUMMOND.

Happy indeed if there be happiness on earth, as that same sweet poet says, is he,

Who love enjoys, and placed hath his mind
    Where fairest virtues fairest beauties grace,
Then in himself such store of worth doth find
    That he deserves to find so good a place.2

2 DRUMMOND.

This was Leonard's case; and when he kissed the paper which her hand had pressed it was with a consciousness of the strength and sincerity of his affection, which at once rejoiced and fortified his heart. To Margaret his letters were like summer dew upon the herb that thirsts for such refreshment. Whenever they arrived, a head-ache became the cause or pretext for retiring earlier than usual to her chamber, that she might weep and dream over the precious lines.

True gentle love is like the summer dew,
    Which falls around when all is still and hush;
And falls unseen until its bright drops strew
    With odours, herb and flower and bank and bush.
O love—when womanhood is in the flush,
    And man's a young and an unspotted thing,
His first-breathed word, and her half-conscious blush,
    Are fair as light in heaven, or flowers in spring.3

3 ALLAN CUNNINGHAM.

END OF VOL. II.

LONDON:
PRINTED BY W. NICOL, CLEVELAND-ROW, ST. JAMES'S.