The Quest of the Golden Girl: A Romance

e contrary, she was one half of a very happy marriage, and, in a sense, her sufferings at the moment were merely theoretical, i

find themselves at the end of it loving each other more than at the beginning,-for you are to suppose two of the tenderest, most dev

ife, and the lack of personal freedom allowed both parties to the contract. Thus love grew commonplace, and the unhappy ones to weary of each other by excessive and enforced association. This was obvious enough, and the remedy as obvious,-separate bedrooms, and a month's holiday in

d remaking during those twelve months! Answer, ye birds of the air that lie in your snug nests, so close, so close, through the tender summer nights, and m

nd one calendar month of each year out of each other's society, with full and free liberty to spend it wheresoever, with whomsoever, and howsoever they pleased; and that this condition was rigidly to be maintained, whatever immediat

ferred to the matter during the early days of May, Rosalind had burst into tears, and begged him to reconsider a condition which they had made before they really knew what wedded love was. But Orlando, though in tears himself (so Rosalind averred), had a higher sen

rence to duty; and Rosalind had gone off for hers with a pretty young man whom she'd liked well enough to go to the theatre and to supper with,-a young man who

ne off in search of her husband, on which search she was embarked at the moment of my encountering her. The tears, th

t had proved more enjoyable, but I am not one to break the bruised reed by making such a suggestion. On

erly, her poor miserable face growing b

eral principles, apart from Orlando's great love for you, it is an eterna

sked Rosalind, with an

olut

and not absence that made the heart of man grow fonder, and that if a man's best girl,

answered, unmoved; "but with a love like

ou really

couples would be only too glad to try, was ever meant for two such love-birds as you. Laws and systems a

deed, we thought that this was one of lov

o cruel, a law that would rob true lovers of each other's society for a whole month in a year, stretchi

ifty years at the most. Well, fifty ones are fifty. Fifty months equal-four twelves are forty-eight and two over-four years and two

is a secondary matter that it and its accompanying wisdom may have les

ust in each other," said Rosalind p

a good householder (ahem!), does w

means perfect tru

te. Trust, perfect trust, with loved ones far away! No, it is an inhuman ideal, an

't say that. I trust Orlando absolutely. It isn't tha

interesting disquisition. However, I forbore to pursue the m

s to find Orlando, tell him that you cannot bear it, an

I thought," s

ll each other where you were going and not to write, as being incompatible

ellowsands, a sort of secret little Monaco, which not many people know of, a wicked-innocent gay little place, where we've

lt of our conversation was that she was to proceed to Yellowsands on the morrow, and that I was to follow as soon as possible,

such a brightened-up face, of which I thought for half