much."

"Is there any woman in the world, Grizel, with whom you would change
places?"

"No, none," she said at once; and when he was sure of it, but never
until he was sure, he would give his mind a little holiday; and then,
perhaps, those candid eyes would rest searchingly upon him, but always
with a brave smile ready should he chance to look up.

And it was just the same when they returned to Double Dykes, which
they added to and turned into a comfortable home--Tommy trying to
become a lover by taking thought, and Grizel not letting on that it
could not be done in that way. She thought it was very sweet of him to
try so hard--sweeter of him than if he really had loved her, though
not, of course, quite so sweet to her. He was a boy only. She knew
that, despite all he had gone through, he was still a boy. And boys
cannot love. Oh, who would be so cruel as to ask a boy to love?

That Grizel's honeymoon should never end was his grand ambition, and
he took elaborate precautions against becoming a matter-of-fact
husband. Every morning he ordered himself to gaze at her with rapture,
as if he had wakened to the glorious thought that she was his wife.

"I can't help it, Grizel; it comes to me every morning with the same
shock of delight, and I begin the day with a song of joy. You make the
world as fresh and interesting to me as if I had just broken like a
chicken through the egg shell." He rose at the earliest hours. "So
that I can have the longer day with you," he said gaily.

If when sitting at his work he forgot her for an hour or two he
reproached himself for it afterwards, and next day he was more
careful. "Grizel," he would cry, suddenly flinging down his pen, "you
are my wife! Do you hear me, madam? You hear, and yet you can sit
there calmly darning socks! Excuse me," he would say to his work,
"while I do a dance."

He rose impulsively and brought his papers nearer her. With a table
between them she was several feet away from him, which was more, he
said, than he could endure.

"Sit down for a moment, Grizel, and let me look at you. I want to
write something most splendiferous to-day, and I am sure to find it in
your face. I have ceased to be an original writer; all the purple
patches are cribbed from you."

He made a point of taking her head in his hands and looking long at
her with thoughts too deep for utterance; then he would fall on his
knees and kiss the hem of her dress, and so back to his book again.