er narrowly, and cannot be mistaken."

"You do wrong, then, Fairman. Anxious watching creates fear, without the
shadow of an excuse for it. When we have anything like a bad symptom, it
is time to get uneasy."

"Yes, but what do you call a bad symptom, Doctor?"

"Why, I call your worrying yourself into fidgets, and teazing me into an
ill temper, a shocking symptom of bad behaviour. If it continue, you
must take a doze. Come, my friend, let me prescribe that glass of good
old port. It does credit to the cloth."

"Seriously, Mayhew, have you never noticed the short, hacking cough that
sometimes troubles her?"

"Yes; I noticed it last January for the space of one week, when there
was not a person within ten miles of you who was not either hacking, as
you call it, or blowing his nose from morning till night. The dear child
had a cold, and so had you, and I, and everybody else."

"And that sudden flush, too?"

"Why, you'll be complaining of the bloom on the peach next! That's
health, and nothing else, take my word for it."

"I am, perhaps, morbidly apprehensive; but I cannot forget her poor
mother. You attended her, Mayhew, and you know how suddenly that came
upon us. Poor Ellen! what should I do without her!"

"Fairman, join me in wishing success to our young friend here. Mr
Stukely, here's your good health; and success and happiness attend you.
You'll find little society here; but it is of the right sort, I can tell
you. You must make yourself at home." The minister became more cheerful,
and an hour passed in pleasant conversation. At ten o'clock, the horse
of Doctor Mayhew was brought to the gate, and the gentleman departed in
great good-humour. Almost immediately afterwards, the incumbent himself
conducted me to my sleeping apartment, and I was not loth to get my
rest. I fell asleep with the beautiful village floating before my weary
eyes, and the first day of my residence at the parsonage closed
peacefully upon me.

It was at the breakfast table on the succeeding morning that I beheld
the daughter of the incumbent, the favourite and companion of my pupils,
and mistress of the house--a maiden in her twentieth year. She was
simply and artlessly attired, gentle and retiring in demeanour, and
femininely sweet rather than beautiful in expression. Her figure was
slender, her voice soft and musical; her hair light brown, and worn
plain across a forehead white as marble. The eye-brows which arched the
small, rich, ha