CHAPTER XII.

'Marriage is a matter of more worth than to be dealt in by attorneyship!'-SHAKESPEARE.

'Oh! cease to affirm that man, since his birth,

From Adam till now, has with wretchedness strove ;

Some portion of Paradise still is on earth,

And Eden revives in the first kiss of love.'-BYRON.

RALPH has taken to pouting-the effects of matrimony! I shouldn't have thought it; but then he never pouts, he says, but when he's happy. 'Look at a fellow's lips!' he says; 'they tell you everything. (Jacob's were as thin as an upas-leaf.) Birdie's tell of Love-and Love is everything!'

I would introduce you to Ralph, sir, and Ralph to you, but what would you think of me? Introduce a man dazed by Gambling on the Undone Vortex!-introduce such a man into Society! Spectre Land is his fit place, to be a warning and example!

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and

Well, he has a dear little Birdie to keep him company, a snug farm which he persists in calling Young Trememdon,' to keep him employed, when the 'Steadiers' Association' does not require his experienced judgment to assist them. The Trememdon tenantry all help him to put in the seed, and show him how, for at present he is completely dazed, especially when he is thinking about Birdie; then he is always in those clouds, which they so often sit and watch-the views are so grand there! Ralph says the clouds speak to him; they are more beautiful than ever you have seen them. Ralph says, 'There are new shades, new tints here. Everything is heart, and everything is love, and love is Birdie!' Always dazed, you see.

I got hold of one of his letters, which, owing to his usual complaint, he forgot to send. Here it is:

Spectre Land, 1,000,9th year, 10,000,9th month-day don't know. 'Dear, dear, JOLLY GIRLS ALL (on earth, I mean),

'We are so happy-Birdie and I. Do come and pay us a visit; always glad to see you, you know. Birdie will make you so happy! We're not a bit lonely, you know, and still shall be delighted to see you, you know. We're not Saints, you know, and from what Birdie and I saw of them during our short sojourn with you all, we can't say our minds lean that way at all; and we have the greatest abhorrence to "glorified Saints" of all the lot, or anything approaching to them, you know. S-ain't you,

'Birdie is mine now-ah, isn't she just!

Birdie? She's looking at me now, and I'm looking at her;we always are! I was going to tell you a lot about what we do up here-how we farm, and all that-but Birdie won't let me. She never will let me do anything I want, because she's always looking at me, and she knows I can't then.

'You should just see how the clouds toss their saucy heads about whenever she goes to look at them! She has only to think-and though only the moment before they may have been piling and rearing themselves up like huge, silver-crested snowballs, shooting away one above the other, chasing each other about like fun, and threatening to burst into blossom in a wonderfully delightful manner, they become all at once transformed into gardens, for us both to walk about in. It does not matter if they were a thousand miles high just before, and frowning ever so, and speaking to you with their bold attitude! Birdie looks; in an instant they've formed themselves into fairy fountains, and lawns, and parterres, and delicious scented shrubberies, with unearthly music mingling with the tiny fountain's splash, untiloh, I can stand it no longer. I don't mind telling you, jolly dear girls, for I know you won't tell anybody, will you? Well, I adore the very ground she walks upon; not like they write about, you know, but do it, each tiny spec and everything about her! I fall at her feet in ecstasy, and then I kiss-oh, no higher than her little hand just then-sometimes I can't do that, and she looks so calm and unmoved the whole time. But is she? I can hear her little bosom telling those tiny heartbeats-quicker, quicker, and faster still; and sometimes I begin to wonder if she knows what is passing in my mind; and when I least expect it I find-oh, you know--of course she has been all the while, and then and then-I sometimes get much worse, oh, very!

After a while we both sigh, together always, and I whisper, 'Birdie, change it, darling," and she gives a little start at the sound of my voice, and asks, "Into what, old fellow ?" and I tell her, into what she likes best; and she does it with a thought. A wooded grove springs up, with myriads of the most lovely songsters flying to and fro. And they all know her, and yet they're not quite tame-I shouldn't like them if they were—but they answer to her call, and then seem half frightened at having been so bold, and she reassures them, and they warble her name so prettily, and soon they all fly off-I think it's I who frighten them. And Birdie says, "All the better, old fellow; you'll enjoy them all the more when they come back again.' Ah, Birdie's always right. Just now she has made gaunt cliffs, sea-beaches, reefs, and rough waves appear. Oh, there's lots of room here. Do

come, you can all have the same if you will only come; but mind, -come mated and you shall do the same, and be adored like Birdie! You only have to choose, for Woman rules the world and everything up here is love-perhaps you wouldn't like it— and love is Birdie !-Ever your own loving

'RALPH.'

Postscript from Birdie-in her own hand. 'Oh, do, do come up! Ralph is so good! Ralph, funny fellow, says it isn't "up," that there is no up or down-well, I can't think it's down, so I don't know where it can be. Ralph is such a dear old fellow ! He's always having Uncle Allan in to see us; and darling Maude brings in Tom Doowell as often as she likes, which is very often indeed; and so does Harry bring in dear, precious Haini, for they've taken a wonderful liking to each other (married, of course!); and dear Sissy and Freddy, but that you know, and Oswald and my own pet Eleanor-no, that's the one you knew, and Reggy and Grace-she is such a duck of a thing, and grown into a marvellously grand creature. I'm so small beside her! but Ralph says I'm multum in something, and that makes uphe says more. I don't believe it though ("Yes, she does; she's blushing!-R. O."); and there, I've told you all; oh, except—but that, of course, you knew, or might have done, for Alfred was always looking for her-Ralph's own little sister, Emma Louise, and we are all married, and ever so many more. All are here, papa and mamma, and everybody. Will not the clouds now speak to you? Won't they now say, "Come, follow me!" Ta-ta, and with ever so much of "the usual," which Ralph says is fortiter in something else I forget.-Your loving

'BIRDIE.'

'N.B. Do soon come! Birdie is now at her harp, not a 'harp of gold," is it, Birdie? "Gold! gold! gold!" she screams, and is now nestling in terror at my side. "Oh, my dear boy Ralph! never mention that horrid word again!" she implores me; and I say, "Never, Birdie darling!" it's the only sound that brings a cloud across her lovely brow. And now she goes to her harp again, which is mellowed out of clouds. Gold has no place in that harp of love! She is sitting rapt in minstrelsy ethereal, with her long, beautiful hair all falling about her in such rich profusion. I do have my way in that - but it's hers too-and it mingles with the brilliant, sparkling, fleecy cloud wreaths which are ever ready to form themselves into a harp for and how she touches the chords, and where they come from, I do not know; and she sings

her;

'And when I revive, for I always am overcome for ever so long afterwards, I tell her, in my odd way, that I mean to sing to her soon.

Loved one! thou my mistress be,

And I will constant ever prove;
Ne'er will I wander, but to thee

Will bring each tribute of my love.

For I never yet asked her to be my wife, but somehow she became it without; so I must reverse the order of things.-RALPH.

'Oh, I forgot; our children-I don't know how many there are, I never count them-require no globules, though old Macjoy often comes to see them. Saint Manfred (he's a proper saint!) ascribes their healthful, ruddy appearance to the warmth imparted by their flossy beds. Saint Manfred seldom wakes up now; but the Fullhearts say it's no such thing. They are not dazed, and stand no chance of becoming so.-R. O.'

'P.S. and N.B. Carlo is up here, and Ralph isn't a bit jealous! but I should be if he had been a she and she had been a New-found-land !-BIRDIE.'

'Birdie darling,' I once heard Ralph say to her, 'now we are calmly settled here, I often think about the things which happened on Earth.'

Drawing her to him, he whispered in her ear, 'You know, Birdie, you lay upon a bed of fever once?'

'Yes, Ralph,' she quietly replied.

Taking her little hand in his, he added, 'And, Birdie love, I who prayed so little prayed then!'

He was silent for some seconds, apparently unable to utter another word. Controlling himself, however, he, gazing into her upturned eyes, sighed forth the words, 'You could not have heard me, my child, and yet-’

'I heard another voice!' trembled forth the radiant little darling at his side, and after that-I slept so tranquilly!' 'You never told me, my own one!'

'I never dared—”

'Dared, Birdie !'

He looked at her and she at him, but for a moment. In the

next she had flung her little arms around his neck. I was not wanted there. As I withdrew I heard her saying to him, in tones which brought vividly before me the old, old days, 'It seemed—— all-too mysterious, my darling boy!'

Of course they are old married folks now, oh, very! but Birdie gets younger in appearance every day. She looks beautiful, and changes in some mysterious manner, like a lovely kaleidoscopean nymph-sometimes every minute-it's wonderful! I don't know where it will all end; their love is becoming more intense than ever.

And the Queen of the Old Countree and Birdie are great friends. I overheard Ralph and Birdie talking together just after

she had left them.

'So nice, isn't she, Ralph dear?'

'Who can doubt it, Birdie?'

After a pause Birdie said, 'But I do think she kept too quiet when she was down there; for a Queen, you know, Ralph.'

Ralph was silent for a time. Presently Birdie looked up in his face. Ah, Ralph! dear old fellow, what is it?' she anxiously asked.

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You funny little pet,' at length he said; 'who has been saying that to you about the Queen?'

Oh, Ralph! I daresay I'm quite wrong,' replied Birdie; 'do tell me now what you think.’.

Ralph drew her closely towards him as he whispered in her ear, 'You never were a-widow, Birdie !'

She started.

Ralph, love, I never could have been!' exclaimed she. should you would-oh, you know! we never could have been separated! no, not for an hour!' said she, taking his arm and placing it around her neck, while she nestled closer to him than ever, reposing calmly upon his bosom. He strained her to him as he faltered forth the words, 'And yet, my own one, had I been taken from you, I should not have thought you "too quiet" when -with myself even nearer to you than I had ever been before— I found you, my own one, daily, ay, hourly, more conscious of my presence than had the flimsy wall of separation never reared the structure which only seemed to show, after all, how impotent a force it was!'

'Ralph! Ralph!' I heard her sob, 'unsay those thoughtless words for me! I never thought—oh, Ralph! I love her so!'

I heard her breathe one long-drawn sigh. I saw her snuggle even closer to him than before. I looked: she was calmly sleeping on his manly bosom.