th him the
battle of the bills. But for the moment he affected generosity, and
so a fitting breakfast was prepared.

And then the bells were rung, the Hadley bells, the merry
marriage-bells.

I know full well the tone with which they toll when the soul is
ushered to its last long rest. I have stood in that green churchyard
when earth has been laid to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust--the
ashes and the dust that were loved so well.

But now the scene was of another sort. How merrily they rang, those
joyous marriage-bells! Youth was now to know the full delight of
matured happiness. Soul should be joined to soul, heart to heart,
hand to hand, manly strength and vigour to all the grace and beauty
of womanhood. The world was pleasant with its most joyous smile as it
opened its embraces to the young pair--about to be two no longer--now
to become one bone and one flesh. Out rung the Hadley bells, the
happy marriage-bells.

And when should bells ring so joyously? Do they not give promise of
all that this world knows of happiness? What is love, sweet pure
love, but the anticipation of this, the natural longing for this, the
consummation of our loving here? To neither man nor woman does the
world fairly begin till seated together in their first mutual home
they bethink themselves that the excitement of their honeymoon is
over. It would seem that the full meaning of the word marriage can
never be known by those who, at their first out-spring into life,
are surrounded by all that money can give. It requires the single
sitting-room, the single fire, the necessary little efforts of
self-devotion, the inward declaration that some struggle shall be
made for that other one, some world's struggle of which wealth can
know nothing. One would almost wish to be poor, that one might work
for one's wife; almost wish to be ill used, that one might fight for
her.

He, as he goes forth to his labour, swears within his heart that, by
God's help on his endeavours, all shall go well with her. And she,
as she stands musing alone in her young home, with a soft happy tear
in her bright eye, she also swears in her heart that, by God's help,
his home shall be to him the sweetest spot on the earth's surface.
Then should not marriage-bells ring joyously? Ah, my friends, do not
count too exactly your three hundreds a year--your four hundreds. Try
the world. But try it with industry and truth, not with idleness and
falsehood.

And now Sir H