e were
ever disturbed by any expectation of the delights of the heart--languors
of tenderness, long embraces, sighs and kisses, and the joys and fevers
of the flesh--for I knew nothing about them. But, nevertheless, I asked
myself if I had mistaken the matter altogether. Was love really
necessary? In all their busy preparations neither my father, nor my
husband, nor the lawyers, nor the Bishop himself, had said anything
about that.

I began to sleep badly and to dream. It was always the same dream. I was
in a frozen region of the far north or south, living in a ship which was
stuck fast in the ice, and had a great frowning barrier before it that
was full of dangerous crevasses. Then for some reason I wanted to write
a letter, but was unable to do so, because somebody had trodden on my
pen and broken it.

It seems strange to me now as I look back upon that time, that I did not
know what angel was troubling the waters of my soul--that Nature was
whispering to me, as it whispers to every girl at the first great crisis
of her life. But neither did I know what angel was leading my footsteps
when, three mornings before my wedding-day, I got up early and went out
to walk in the crisp salt air.

Almost without thinking I turned down the lane that led to the shore,
and before I was conscious of where I was going, I found myself near
Sunny Lodge. The chimney was smoking for breakfast, and there was a
smell of burning turf coming from the house, which was so pretty and
unchanged, with the last of the year's roses creeping over the porch and
round the windows of the room in which I had slept when a child.

Somebody was digging in the garden. It was the doctor in his shirt
sleeves.

"Good morning, doctor," I called, speaking over the fence.

He rested on his spade and looked up, but did not speak for a moment.

"Don't you know who I am?" I asked.

"Why yes, of course; you must be. . . ."

Without finishing he turned his head towards the porch and cried:

"Mother! Mother! Come and see who's here at last!"

Martin's mother came out of the porch, a little smaller, I thought, but
with the same dear womanly face over her light print frock, which was as
sweet as may-blossom.

She held up both hands at sight of me and cried:

"There, now! What did I tell you, doctor! Didn't I say they might marry
her to fifty lords, but she wouldn't forget her old friends!"

I laughed, the doctor laughed, and then she laughed, and the swee