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 to a
paradise too sweet to name! Days of high ecstacy, and painfully
passionate joy!--when "love, love!" palpitated in the air, and struggled
for utterance in the jubilant throats of birds, and whispered wild
suggestions in the rustling of the leaves! There were times when
Thelma,--lost and amazed and overcome by the strength and sweetness of
the nectar held to her innocent lips by a smiling and flame-winged
Eros,--would wonder vaguely whether she lived indeed, or whether she
were not dreaming some gorgeous dream, too brilliant to last? And even
when her husband's arms most surely embraced her, and her husband's kiss
met hers in all the rapture of victorious tenderness, she would often
question herself as to whether she were worthy of such perfect
happiness, and she would pray in the depths of her pure heart to be made
more deserving of this great and wonderful gift of love--this supreme
joy, almost too vast for her comprehension.
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