and his friend Hiller surprised them with
a new bridal chorus. The wedding tour lasted nearly a month, and the
honeymooners kept a journal, in which they both sketched and wrote
humourous nothings. The home they chose was in Leipzig, where Fanny
Hensel visited them, and found Cecile possessed not only of "the
beautiful eyes" Felix had raved over so much, "but possessed also of a
wonderfully soothing temperament, that calmed her husband's whims and
promised to cure him of his irritability."

The married life of the two was interrupted by the journeys the husband
had to make for his important engagements, till he growled vigorously,
and regretted being a conductor at all.

In February, 1838, the first child was born, and Cecile was dangerously
ill. On other tours of his, even to England, she accompanied him. She
bore him five children, three boys and two girls. Their life together
was almost perfect. He writes, in 1841, to a friend who is to be
married:

"If I have still a wish to form it is that your blissful betrothal-mood
may be continued in marriage, that is, may you be like me, who feel
every day of my life that I cannot be sufficiently thankful to God for
my happiness."

In another letter he thus pictures his private paradise: "Eating and
sleeping, without dress coat, without piano, without visiting-cards,
without carriage and horses, but with donkeys, with wild flowers, with
music-paper and sketch-book, with Cecile and the children." Again, in
1844, he writes of a return home:

"I found all my family well, and we had a joyful meeting. Cecile looks
so well again,--tanned by the sun, but without the least trace of her
former indisposition; my first glance told this when I came into the
room, but to this day I cannot cease rejoicing afresh every time I look
at her. The children are as brown as Moors, and play all day long in the
garden. And so I am myself again now, and I take one of the sheets of
paper that Cecile painted for me, to write to you.

"I am sitting here at the open window, looking into the garden at the
children, who are playing with their 'dear Johann.' The omnibus to
Koenigstein passes here twice every day. We have early strawberries for
breakfast, at two we dine, have supper at half-past eight in the
evening, and by ten we are all asleep. The country is covered with
pear-trees and apple-trees, so heavy with fruit that they are all
propped up; then the blue hills, and the windings of the Main an