Invisible to all but ourselves,
and each other, we watched the wanton troopers riding by on their meek
black chargers.
First came the cornet--a sunny-haired Apollo, a gilded youth, graceful
and magnificent to the eye--careless, fearless, but stupid, harsh, and
proud--an English Phebus de Chateaupers--the son of a great contractor;
I remembered him well, and that he loved me not. Then the rank and file
in stable jackets, most of them (but for a stalwart corporal here and
there) raw, lanky youths, giving promise of much future strength, and
each leading a second horse; and among them, longest and lankiest of
them all, but ruddy as a ploughboy, and stolidly whistling _"On revient
toujours a ses premiers amours,"_ rode my former self--a sight (or
sound) that seemed to touch some tender chord in Mary's nature, where
there were so many, since it filled her eyes with tears.
[Illustration]
To describe in full a honey-moon filled with such adventures, and that
lasted for three years, is unnecessary. It would be but another
superficial record of travel, by another unskilled pen. And what a pen
is wanted for such a theme! It was not mere life, it was the very cream
and essence of life, that we shared with each other--all the toil and
trouble, the friction and fatigue, left out.
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