A Wife—at daybreak I shall be, by middlemarch

Anne had always thought she was good friends with the sun. She had not expected the strong urge to burrow beneath the covers when she’d opened her eyes and found the light filling the room, cheerful, brilliant, unequivocal day, the first full day of being Anne Blythe that she had longed for these past years. Why did the rumpled bed, the pale shadows made by the linens, the real darkness promised by the underside of the down pillows, all beckon so?

Mature, post-wedding. This is such a lovely slice of Anne’s first morning as a wife, contemplating all that’s happened the night before…