They had returned to Paris for the early new year: and, as this year
happened fortunately to be ushered into existence by a sharp frost and a
bright sunny sky, the boulevards were not the black rivers of mud and
slush that they are apt to be in the first days of the infantine year.
Prince Louis Napoleon Buonaparte was only First President as yet; and
Paris was by no means the wonderful city of endless boulevards and
palatial edifices that it has since grown to be under the master hand
which rules and beautifies it, as a lover adorns his mistress. But it
was not the less the most charming city in the universe; and Philip
Jocelyn and his wife were as happy as two children in this paradise of
brick and mortar.
They suited each other so well; they were never tired of each other's
society, or at a stand-still for want of something to say to each other.
They were rather frivolous, perhaps; but a little frivolity may be
pardoned in two people who were so very young and so entirely happy. Sir
Philip may have been a little too much devoted to horses and dogs, and
Laura may have been a shade too enthusiastic upon the subject of new
bonnets, and the jewellery in the Rue de la Paix. But if they idled a
little just now, in this delicious honeymoon-time, when it was so sweet
to be together always, from morning till night, driving in a sleigh with
jingling bells upon the snowy roads in the Bois, sitting on the balcony
at Meurice's at night, looking down into the long lamp-lit street and
the misty gardens, where the trees were leafless and black against the
dark blue sky, they meant to do their duty, and be useful to their
fellow-creatures, when they were settled at Jocelyn's Rock.
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