"There could not be a more lovely place to be happy in!" said Sophie,
sighing from excess of pleasure.
"Any place is as lovely as another when you're in love, I suppose,"
remarked her sister; "that is, if being in love is as nice as poets say
it is."
Sophie looked around with a smile, implying that the best description a
poet ever wrote could give but a faint impression of the reality.
"But," pursued Cornelia, "don't you find it very stupid when he's away?
The happier you are with him, the unhappier you'd be without him, I
should think."
"Oh, no, dear!" returned Sophie. "I'm happy mostly, because I know he
cares for me more than for any one else in the world, and because I know
he's one of the best and truest of men. I can feel that, you know, just
as much when he's at Abbie's, as when he's here. The happiness of love
isn't all in seeing and hearing, and--all that tangible part."
"Don't it make any difference, then, if you never Bee one another from
the day you're engaged until you're married?"
Sophie began to blush, as she generally did when called upon to speak of
her love. "Of course, it's delicious to be together," said she, "and it
would be very sad if we could not meet. But it would be more sad to
think that our love depended on meeting."
"Well, it may be so to you," returned Cornelia, picking lichens from the
rock and crushing them between her rounded fingers; "but my idea is that
the whole object of being engaged and married is to be together all the
time. I don't see what on earth we are made visible and tangible for,
unless to be seen and touched by the persons we love."
Sophie looked distressed, and a little embarrassed.
"You can't think our bodies are the most important part of us, Neelie,
dear? It's our souls that love and are loved, you know. How could we
love in heaven if it were not so?"
"Oh, I don't know any thing about that. It's love in this world I'm
speaking of. I believe it has as much to do with flesh and blood, as an
instrument has with the music that it makes. What would become of the
music if it wasn't for the instrument?"
"That's a beautiful illustration, my dear," observed Sophie, after a
thoughtful pause, "but I think it can be used better the other way. The
music of love, like other music, is an existence by itself, exclusive of
the flesh-and-blood instruments, which weren't given us to create music,
but to interpret it to our earthly senses. Our souls are the players;
but in the next world we shall be able to perceive the harmony without
need of any medium. We can remember music, too, and enjoy it, long after
we have heard it--that is why we don't need to be always together. And
yet it's always sweet to meet, to hear a new tune; and the number of
tunes is infinite; so love needs all eternity to make itself complete."