summer noons
To be sure , nobody came to see them , but then they wished to see nobody ; so every one was well satisfied . The delicious lovers ' life of two years before was renewed , but with how much richer and deeper delights and blissfulness ! They galloped on many a pleasant morning across miles and miles of country , down rocky slopes , and through wild and romantic glens . They drove lazily , on summer noons , through leafy fastnesses and cool forest paths ; or sat idly by some little stream on the fresh , green moss , with a line dancing on the crystal water , amusing themselves by the fiction that it was fishing upon which they were intent , and not the dear delight of watching one another 's faces reflected from the placid stream . They spent hours at home , reading bits of poems , or singing scraps of love-songs , talking a little , and then falling away into silence ; or she sat perched on his knee or the elbow of his chair , smoothing his sunny hair , stroking his long , silky mustache , or looking into his answering eyes , till the world lapsed quite away from them , and they thought themselves in heaven . An idle , happy time ! a time to make a worker sigh only to behold , and a Benthamite lift his hands in deprecation and despair .