other affairs were in progress at the Rectory. Merman, whose anxiety and rapidity of movement induced me to think that he was sincerely attached to Fanny, had followed his letter, and was actually ensconsed in his old lodgings in Blissfold within a few hours after Wells received it. Of this fact he apprised the worthy Rector, and it was in consequence of these prompt measures that Mrs. Wells and her daughter had gone home to deliberate and decide.

It is impossible for me to say what were the arguments adduced pro and con, or who chiefly advocated the cause of the Lieutenant; but, as I have already stated, the moment I heard that offended pride and a lady's love were to be put in opposite scales, and that Miss Fanny was to hold the beam, I entertained very little doubt which would preponderate.

I ought, perhaps, to mention that Miss Millicent Maloney had not been heard of by Mrs. Pennefather at the time of the Lieutenant's departure a circumstance which induced her affectionate friend to believe that the companion

of her flight was not altogether so unexceptionable as she had hoped. It turned out, moreover, that the young lady's maid, Gibson, did not accompany her; but, on the contrary, was perfectly ignorant of her flight. Miss Maloney having sent her on an errand to the neighbouring town, desiring her to wait there for her, she did wait until so long after the usual dinner hour at home, that she fancied she must have made some mistake, and then returned; and, as she said herself, "the very first syllable as ever she heard of Miss Milly's going was from Susan when she came into the house."

Nobody in the neighbourhood had seen Miss Maloney out in the afternoon, either alone or with anybody else; no horses had been ordered from, nor come to, any of the inns in the town, nor to the alehouse in the village, nor had any carriage passed through since the morning. Where, how, when, and with whom the young lady had migrated still therefore remained a mystery.

Not so the termination of the proceedings at the Rectory; for, hearing the approach of visitors across the lawn somewhere about four o'clock, I looked out and beheld four familiar faces, "wreathed in smiles," looking up at the windows of Harriet's room. They belonged to the Rector and his lady, who walked first, and to Fanny Wells and Lieutenant Merman, who followed arm-in-arm, just as sociable as if nothing had ever happened to ripple the course of their true love.

I welcomed the young couple-for now they were avowedly a pair-and shook my brotherin-law by the hand, with a determination to make the best of it, still however silently wishing that the service of his country might require his presence in some field of glory far from the quiet plains of Ashmead.

It was now drawing near post-time, and I was waiting impatiently either for Sniggs, or a despatch from him, in order to regulate my proceedings. It was just five, and I grew dreadfully uneasy, and began to pace up and down my

library, when the door opened and the servant gave me a note from Sniggs, sealed with black wax. My fingers trembled as I opened it. Opened, however, it was, and I read :

"DEAR SIR,

"The boy is less feverish, and I think things look better. You shall see me this

evening.

"Yours,

"S. SNIGGS."

This unexpected report, of course, decided my stay; and, accordingly, I wrote to Cuthbert a detailed account of Tom's progress, and would have enclosed Snigg's last hope-giving note, but I was sure that the word " boy" would have excited all my brother's ire, and given an idea of neglect and carelessness in our proceedings, so I copied it, leaving the fact, and substituting the word patient for the less respectful monosyllable which I found in the original.

I confess I was quite delighted with the bulletin, worded as it might have been; for,

when the crisis seemed to be so evidently at hand, every cross word I had uttered with regard to young Falwasser seemed to rise up in judgment against me, although when he was well I scarcely ever saw a human being I hated so much.

We are strange creatures, and I, perhaps, one of the oddest; however, I ate my dinner with a better appetite than I expected; and after it was over, drank, conjointly, the healths of Fanny Wells and Lieutenant Philip Merman. This seemed strangest of all.