"WE shall certainly be very happy together!" said Louise to her aunt on the evening before her marriage, and her cheeks glowed with a deeper red, and her eyes shone with delight. When a bride says we, it may easily be guessed whom of all persons in the world she means thereby.

"I do not doubt it, dear Louise," replied her aunt. "See only that you continue happy together."

"Oh, who can doubt that we shall continue so! I know myself. I have faults, indeed, but my love for him will correct them. And so long as we love each other, we cannot be unhappy. Our love will never grow old."

"Alas!" sighed her aunt, "thou dost speak like a maiden of nineteen, on the day before her marriage, in the intoxication of wishes fulfilled, of fair hopes and happy omens. Dear child, remember this—even the heart in time grows cold. Days will come when the magic of the senses shall fade. And when this enchantment has fled, then it first becomes evident whether we are truly worthy of love. When custom has made familiar the charms that are most attractive, when youthful freshness has died away, and with the brightness of domestic life, more and more shadows have mingled, then, Louise, and not till then, can the wife say of the husband, 'He is worthy of love;' then, first, the husband

Скачать книгу