Ashmead, in spite of Mrs. Gurney having, under her mother's influence, called in other medical aid; and he-as it were intuitively started the very proposition which I was about to make.

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Why not take Master Tom to my house?" said Sniggs; "I shall have him there under my own eye. Mrs. Sniggs will be as careful of him as if he were our own. All difficulty will be removed, and I shall be too happy to be of any use in relieving you from your difficulties."

"Have you any objection to open the business to my brother?" said I.

"Not the least," replied the apothecary. "That he ought to be moved from this house nobody can doubt; he can be removed at present without danger-where can he go better than to the house of a medical practitioner, in whom, as I flatter myself, his father-in-law has so much confidence? I'll go this instant-give my opinion and advice-vaccinate my patient, and then make every necessary arrangement."

The natural readiness for action which uniformly characterized the proceedings of Mr. Sniggs, blended with the prospect of the profits arising from his successful attendance upon the darling lout, filled him with energy and eloquence. What he said or what he did in the way of persuasion to my brother, I do not pretend to guess. All I know is, that in less than half an hour the operator returned to the dinner-room, where Downey and I were sitting, and with spark. ling eyes and a joyous countenance announced the consent of Cuthbert to the arrangement, provided the Doctor would give a favourable opinion as to the safety of the young patient's transport from one place to the other.

Our difficulties now were nearly overcome-we were sure of the Doctor's voice in our favour, and a few minutes more sufficed for the arrangement of the whole affair. I confess I felt myself relieved of a heavy burden, and not a little anxious to see the project carried into execution. Having got so far, I ventured to suggest to Cuthbert that there would in that case be no necessity for his leaving us; but Hutton's entrance into the room to mention that one of the housemaids, he was afraid, was sickening, set all doubt upon that question at rest; in fact, as it appeared to me, the preparations for the joint departure of Mrs. Brandyball, the girls, and Cuthbert were already far advanced, and that a regular communication had been kept up between the high contracting powers, who for their own separate and particular reasons had resolved upon leaving Ashmead immediately, and leaving it together.

The girls were tired of us already, and as the mirthful noises and romps, in which they much rejoiced, would be of a necessity suspended for the next two or three weeks, they anticipated more of dulness and quietude during the rest of their stay than suited their tastes and genius; and this, added to the necessity of Mrs. Brandyball's return to her seminary by a particular day, concluded that faction in their resolve to decamp, having first undergone the preservative and preventive process which was to be universally inflicted by the skilful hand of Sniggs.

With respect to Cuthbert, kind as his professions were, and liberal as his conduct might be, I could not help observing an increase of that indifference towards Harriet which I had previously noticed in a slighter degree. Kitty's private consultations and conversations with her father-inlaw struck me to be somehow connected with this disagreeable change. And I could not help fancying that his invincible desire to leave Ashmead was in some degree attributable to the same influence. What I feared was that the influence-powerful as it most unquestionably was-was not spontaneously exerted. I was alarmed lest its operations should be directed by the more matured judgment of Mrs. Brandyball. What her objects were I could not exactly define; but I felt convinced that she had some point of first-rate importance to herself to carry, and I could not divest myself of the idea that she made Kitty the tool with which she might carry on her machinations.

To be candid, however, as one may be, at least when he writes for no eye but his own, I did not regret, in this particular instance, the success of the young lady's persuasiveness. To put Cuthbert to any inconvenience would have given me the greatest pain and uneasiness, but he preferred leaving me so far I had nothing to reproach myself with; and as for the removal of the rest of the party, nothing could be more agreeable. Accordingly, I submitted to his expressed will. Less than two hours were allowed for the packing of the carriage in which the travellers were to make their journey. Four horses were ordered to be at the door at half-past three, by which arrangement it was proposed that the party should reach Salisbury by seven or eight o'clock, where they were to sleep, Hutton and Cuthbert's other servant, with their luggage, filling Mrs. Brandyball's post-chaise, and bringing up the rear.

It was determined, moreover, that Tom should not be apprized of any of these arrangements, inasmuch as, if he had even quietly acquiesced in them, there must have been a

parting, which would have defeated the main object of the flight. Sniggs therefore undertook to amuse the lad by performing various tricks of magic and conjuration in his room while my guests were getting under way.

Dr. Downey had resumed his close attendance upon my wife, whose side her affectionate mother had never once left since she came to her in the morning. Wells and Bessy had come over from the Rectory, and were just in time to take leave of the travellers; and within a few minutes of the proposed time, I received the parting kisses of Kitty and Jane, handed Mrs. Brandyball into the carriage, and shook hands with Cuthbert, feeling, I can scarcely tell why, a presentiment that I never should see him at Ashmead again. He seemed to me to have thrown himself—or rather, passively to have fallen-into the hands of strangers; and when he bid me farewell, he did not make the faintest allusion to Harriet, or express the slightest wish to hear the result of her confinement.

The subsequent scene with Tom was very remarkable. Sniggs having made himself excessively entertaining, suggested to Tom that if he liked to come to his house, to dine and sleep, while there was so much bustle going on at Ashmead, it would do him no harm, and that there was no objection to his doing so. Tom jumped at the proposal: and Sniggs having taken the proper opportunity of sending for a hack chaise from the inn, charitably preferring the risk of infecting a public carriage, into which fifty strangers might in the next day or two be buttoned, to using any vehicle belonging to the family, wrapped the hopeful youth up in a great coat and a cloak, and carried him off unresistingly to his residence in the High-street of Blissfold; nor was it until the next morning that Master Tom clearly understood the character of his visit there; he was then enlightened by the enforcement of the severe discipline which had at first been ordered, and clearly comprehended that he had been sent away from home on purpose to be out of the way. The rage and passion of the young gentleman exceeded all bounds, and it required main force and the intervention of a strong lock to keep him where he was. At length, however, as the disorder advanced, his spirit sank, and he continued to take the medicines which were prescribed, and not take the food which was proscribed, with a sulky sullenness which, if not more amiable, was at least more endurable than his violence.

At half past seven o'clock on the evening of the departure of the amiable family and their charming friend, I be

came the father of a fine boy, pronounced by Mrs. Wells and the nurse to be as like me as possible. The Doctor looked pleased, and congratulating me with the greatest warmth, announced that which was the welcomest part of his important intelligence, that the mother and child were "as well as could be expected."

CHAPTER VII.

"So then, I am a father, a new tie binds me to the world, and Harriet absolutely worships her infant. All is going on well. The house is perfectly quiet; even the Canary birds, unprovoked and unexcited, are mute. Still I occasionally hear a sound hitherto strange to Ashmead,the shrill cry of my son and heir; he that, please God, is to be hereafter something good and great. How strange is such an anticipation! Only fancy that Dr. Johnson was once a baby; and that the height of my ambition would be to see that dear, little, soft, red thing up stairs, just such a man as he, in due course of time; but, to be sure, all the babies I ever saw were soft, and red, and remarkably like their fathers, and so is mine."

This was the sort of soliloquy in which I was indulging when Mrs. Wells came to me in the garden to inquire, at Harriet's suggestion, whether I had written to announce the event to Cuthbert.

"Where am I to find him?" said I. "When he went away, he said nothing about either my wife or my child. He left no address nor any direction where a letter might find him."

"That odious Mrs. Brandyball," said Mrs. Wells, "will no doubt be able to forward any thing to him; and Harriet feels that it would be extremely wrong not to let him hear."

"She is quite right," said I; "but there is something extremely repugnant to my feelings in making Mrs. Brandyball the medium of such a communication."

"What else can you do?" said my prudent mother-inlaw. "As the child is a boy, and as your brother has expressed his desire of standing godfather, it would be losing an excellent chance of a provision for him hereafter."

"That desire," said I, "was expressed before the sudden