n
at least."

"As to that," cried the Squire, "'tis the best think I know about
Rickeybockey, that he don't attempts to humbug us by any such foreign
trumpery. Thank heaven, the Hazeldeans of Hazeldean were never
turf-hunters and title-mongers; and if I never ran after an English
lord, I should certainly be devilishly ashamed of a brother-in-law whom
I was forced to call markee or count! I should feel sure he was a
courier, or runaway valley-de-sham. Turn up your nose at a doctor,
indeed, Harry!--pshaw, good English style that! Doctor! my aunt married
a Doctor of Divinity--excellent man--wore a wig, and was made a dean! So
long as Rickeybockey is not a doctor of physic, I don't care a button.
If he's _that_, indeed, it would be suspicious; because, you see, those
foreign doctors of physic are quacks, and tell fortunes, and go about on
a stage with a Merry-Andrew."

"Lord, Hazeldean! where on earth did you pick up that idea?" said Harry,
laughing.

"Pick it up!--why, I saw a fellow myself at the cattle fair last
year--when I was buying short-horns--with a red waistcoat and a cocked
hat, a little like the Parson's shovel. He called himself Doctor
Phoscophornio--wore a white wig and sold pills! The Merry-Andrew was the
funniest creature--in salmon-colored tights--turned head over heels, and
said he came from Timbuctoo. No, no; if Rickeybockey's a physic Doctor,
we shall have Jemima in a pink tinsel dress, tramping about the country
in a caravan!"

At this notion, both the Squire and his wife laughed so heartily that
the Parson felt the thing was settled, and slipped away, with the
intention of making his report to Riccabocca.

CHAPTER XXVI.

It was with a slight disturbance of his ordinary suave and well-bred
equanimity that the Italian received the information, that he need
apprehend no obstacle to his suit from the insular prejudices or the
worldly views of the lady's family. Not that he was mean and cowardly
enough to recoil from the near and unclouded prospect of that felicity
which he had left off his glasses to behold with unblinking naked
eyes:--no, there his mind was made up; but he had met with very little
kindness in life, and he was touched not only by the interest in his
welfare testified by a heretical priest, but by the generosity with
which he was admitted into a well-born and wealthy family, despite his
notorious poverty and his foreign descent. He conceded the propriety of
the only stipulation,