ly we got through our task-work, and what
vivacity there was in our eyes and fingers! It was the eagerness to get
away, as if all our joys lay before us, and at a distance from that
place, which gave such activity to our motions. At a hasty glance it
might be supposed we were merrily occupied, there was so much alacrity
in the bustle we made; but the bent and silent heads offered a strange
contradiction to the busy hands.

At last the moment came when we were to take our departure. A thrill of
terror shot through our veins, as a close post-chaise, sweeping through
the trees, stopped suddenly at the door, where we stood in the shadow of
the portico, with our cases and boxes waiting for its arrival. The good
people of the house, somewhat alarmed, and hardly knowing what
construction to put upon this sudden movement, which they connected
vaguely with the mysteries of the night before, were dotted about the
gravel-walk and under the trees; two very old people and two or three
grandchildren, looking up helplessly at us, with a bewildering wonder in
their open mouths, which, under any other circumstances, might have
amused us; but we were not in a mood to appreciate points of humor.
Terror, shapeless and oppressive, shook us both to the core as I handed
Astraea into the post-chaise, and, hastily following her, closed the
door--leaving the windows open, that we might breathe freely, and see
every object distinctly around us, and in advance of us.

There was a desperate exultation in that moment, too!--a riotous sense
of fierce happiness! I was carrying away Astraea from the whole world!
Astraea was giving up the whole world for me! My heart beat loudly, and
poured its palpitating blood into my throbbing temples. The postillion
cracked his whip, and the panting horses started off with a plunge, as
if they would tear up the earth. We turned to each other--our faces were
lighted up with a flash of rapture--I clasped her hands in mine, and
showered a hundred burning kisses upon them; and when we cleared the
little valley, and felt the fresh breeze of the cool uplands upon our
cheeks, we thought that, from the days of the first innocence in the
garden of Eden to that hour, no two people ever loved each other so
passionately, or were ever so profoundly happy!

II.

The first hour of accomplished love is, perhaps, the only passage in a
man's life with which he is perfectly satisfied. It is the only reality
that does not disappo