ife in ever new and expanding circles of glory. She felt as if she
could never sufficiently understand it,--the passionate adoration Philip
lavished upon her, filled her with a sort of innocent wonder and
gratitude, while her own overpowering love and worship of him, sometimes
startled her by its force into a sweet shame and hesitating fear. To her
mind he was all that was great, strong, noble, and beautiful--he was her
master, her king,--and she loved to pay him homage by her exquisite
humility, clinging tenderness, and complete, contented submission. She
was neither weak nor timid,--her character, moulded on grand and simple
lines of duty, saw the laws of Nature in their true light, and accepted
them without question. It seemed to her quite clear that man was the
superior,--woman the inferior, creature--and she could not understand
the possibility of any wife not rendering instant and implicit obedience
to her husband, even in trifles.

Since her wedding-day no dark cloud had crossed her heaven of happiness,
though she had been a little confused and bewildered at first by the
wealth and dainty luxury with which Sir Philip had delighted to surround
her. She had been married quietly at Christiania, arrayed in one of her
own simple white gowns, with no ornament save a cluster of pale
blush-roses, the gift of Lorimer. The ceremony was witnessed by her
father and Errington's friends,--and when it was concluded they had all
gone on their several ways,--old Gueldmar for a "toss" on the Bay of
Biscay,--the yacht _Eulalie_, with Lorimer, Macfarlane, and Duprez on
board, back to England, where these gentlemen had separated to their
respective homes,--while Errington, with his beautiful bride, and Britta
in demure and delighted attendance on her, went straight to Copenhagen.
From there they travelled to Hamburg, and through Germany to the
Schwarzwald, where they spent their honeymoon at a quiet little hotel in
the very heart of the deep-green Forest.

Days of delicious dreaming were these,--days of roaming on the emerald
green turf under the stately and odorous pines, listening to the dash of
the waterfalls, or watching the crimson sunset burning redly through the
darkness of the branches,--and in the moonlit evenings sitting under the
trees to hear the entrancing music of a Hungarian string-band, which
played divine and voluptuous melodies of the land,--"lieder" and
"walzer" that swung the heart away on a golden thread of sound