rade you know me for a watchmaker, and for a Plymouth
Brother by conviction. All the week I'm bending over a counter, and
every Sabbath-day I speak in prayer-meeting what I hold, that life's
a dull pilgrimage to a better world. If you ask me, sir, to-night, I
ought to say the same. But a man may break out for once; and when so
well as on his honeymoon? For a week I've been a free heathen: for a
week I've been hiding here, living with the woman I love in the open
air; and night after night for a week Annie here has clothed herself
like a woman of fashion. Oh, my God! it has been a beautiful time--a
happy beautiful time that ends to-night!"

He set down the fiddle, crooked up a knee and clasped his hands round
it, looking at Annie.

"Annie, girl, what is it that we believe till to-morrow morning?
You believe--eh?--that 'tis a rare world, full of delights, and with
no ugliness in it?"

Annie nodded.

"And you love every soul--the painted woman in the streets no less
than your own mother?"

Annie nodded again. "I'd nurse 'em both if they were sick," she
said.

"One like the other?"

"And there's nothing shames you?" Here he rose and took her hand.
"You wouldn't blush to kiss me before master here?"

"Why should I?" She gave him a sober kiss, and let her hand rest in
his.

I looked at her. She was just as quiet as in the old days when she
used to lay my table. It was like gazing at a play.

I should be ashamed to repeat the nonsense that Tubal Cain thereupon
began to talk; for it was mere midsummer madness. But I smoked four
pipes contentedly while the sound of his voice continued, and am
convinced that he never performed so well at prayer-meeting. Down at
the town I heard the church-clock striking midnight, and then one
o'clock; and was only aroused when the youth started up and grasped
his fiddle.

"And now, sir, if you would consent to one thing, 'twould make us
very happy. You can't play the violin, worse luck; but you might
take a step or two round the deck with Annie, if I strike up a
waltz-tune for you to move to."

It was ridiculous, but as he began to play I moved up to Annie, put
my arm around her, and we began to glide round and round on the deck.
Her face was turned away from mine, and looked over my shoulder; if
our eyes had met, I am convinced I must have laughed or wept. It was
half farce, half deadly earnest, and for me as near to hysterics as a
sane man can go. Tubal Cain,