They told him at home, the doctor said, not to stop anywhere; he knew
what they meant by that, but he didn't care; it was as much his news
as anybody's, and why should he be kept down to pills and plasters?

Leslie was going to marry Doctor John Hautayne.

Well! It was splendid news, and we had somehow expected it. And
yet--"only think!" That was all we could say; that is a true thing
people do say to each other, in the face of a great, beautiful fact.
Take it in; shut your door upon it; and--think! It is something that
belongs to heart and soul.

We counted up; it was only seven weeks.

"As if that were the whole of it!" said Doctor Ingleside. "As if the
Lord didn't know! As if they hadn't been living on, to just this
meeting-place! She knows his life, and the sort of it, though she has
never been in it with him before; that is, we'll concede that, for the
sake of argument, though I'm not so sure about it; and he has come
right here into hers. They are fair, open, pleasant ways, both of
them; and here, from the joining, they can both look back and take in,
each the other's; and beyond they just run into one, you see, as
foreordained, and there's no other way for them to go."

Nobody knew it but ourselves that next night,--Thursday. Doctor
Hautayne read beautiful things from the Brownings at Miss Pennington's
that evening; it was his turn to provide; but for us,--we looked into
new depths in Leslie's serene, clear, woman eyes, and we felt the
intenser something in his face and voice, and the wonder was that