here, because they were gone as soon as they had come, and we felt
very hospitable. We wandered down to our sweet, sleepy river, and
it was so silent all around us and so solitary, that we seemed the
only persons living. We sat beneath our stately trees, and felt as
if we were the rightful inheritors of the old abbey, which had
descended to us from a long line. The tree-tops waved a majestic
welcome, and rustled their thousand leaves like brooks over our
heads. But the bloom and fragrance of nature had become secondary
to us, though we were lovers of it. In my husband's face and eyes
I saw a fairer world, of which the other was a faint copy."

Nearly two weeks later she continues in the same letter, "Sweet,
dear Mary, nearly a fortnight has passed since I wrote the above.
I really believe I will finish my letter to-day, though I do not
promise. That magician upstairs is very potent! In the afternoon
and evening I sit in the study with him. It is the pleasantest
niche in our temple. We watch the sun, together, descending in
purple and gold, in every variety of magnificence, over the river.
Lately, we go on the river, which is now frozen; my lord to skate,
and I to run and slide, during the dolphin death of day. I
consider my husband a rare sight, gliding over the icy stream.
For, wrapped in his cloak, he looks very graceful; impetuously
darting from me in long, sweeping curves, and returning again--
again to shoot away. Our meadow at the bottom of the orchard is
like a small frozen sea now; and that is the present scene of our
heroic games. Sometimes, in the splendor of the dying light, we
seem sporting upon transparent gold, so prismatic becomes the ice;
and the snow takes opaline hues from the gems that float above as
clouds. It is eminently the hour to see objects, just after the
sun has disappeared. Oh, such oxygen as we inhale! After other