You can let the wind blow and the rain fall unheeded then, for your
hearth will be warm and bright, and the faces round it will make
sunshine in spite of the clouds without.

I am afraid, dear Edwin and Angelina, you expect too much from love.
You think there is enough of your little hearts to feed this fierce,
devouring passion for all your long lives. Ah, young folk! don't rely
too much upon that unsteady flicker. It will dwindle and dwindle as
the months roll on, and there is no replenishing the fuel. You will
watch it die out in anger and disappointment. To each it will seem
that it is the other who is growing colder. Edwin sees with
bitterness that Angelina no longer runs to the gate to meet him, all
smiles and blushes; and when he has a cough now she doesn't begin to
cry and, putting her arms round his neck, say that she cannot live
without him. The most she will probably do is to suggest a lozenge,
and even that in a tone implying that it is the noise more than
anything else she is anxious to get rid of.

Poor little Angelina, too, sheds silent tears, for Edwin has given up
carrying her old handkerchief in the inside pocket of his waistcoat.

Both are astonished at the falling off in the other one, but neither
sees their own change. If they did they would not suffer as they do.
They would look for the cause in the right quarter--in the littleness
of poor human nature--join hands over their common failing, and start
building their house anew on a more earthly and enduring foundation.
But we are so blind to our own shortcomings, so wide awake to those of
others. Everything that happens to us is always the other person's
fault. Angelina would have gone on loving Edwin forever and ever and
ever if only Edwin had not grown so strange and different. Edwin