d out,
"What! all in a moment like that? what would your mother think of me?"

Henry ran for his mother, and brought her into the room.

"Mother," said he, "Grace wants to know what you will think of her, if
she should lay aside humbug and marry me to-morrow?"

Mrs. Little replied, "I shall say, here is a dear child, who has seen
what misery may spring from delay, and so now she will not coquet with
her own happiness, nor trifle with yours."

"No, no," said Grace; "only tell me you will forgive my folly, and love
me as your child."

Mrs. Little caught her in her arms, and, in that attitude, Grace gave
her hand to Henry, and whispered "Yes."

Next day, at eleven o'clock, the two couples went to the old church,
and walked up the aisle to the altar. Grace looked all around. Raby had
effaced every trace of Henry's sacrilege from the building; but not from
the heart of her whose life he had saved on that very spot.

She stood at the altar, weeping at the recollections the place revived,
but they were tears of joy. The parson of the parish, a white-haired old
man, the model of a pastor, married the two couples according to the law
of England.

Raby took his wife home, more majorum.

Little whirled his prize off to Scotland, and human felicity has seldom
equaled his and his bride's.

Yet in the rapture of conjugal bliss, she did not forget duty and filial
affection. She wrote a long and tender letter to her father, telling
him how it all happened, and hoping that she should soon be settled, and
then he would come and live with her and her adored husband.

Mr. Carden was delighted with this letter, which, indeed, was one
gush of love and happiness. He told Coventry what had taken place, and
counseled patience.

Coventry broke out into curses. He made wonderful efforts for a man in
his condition; he got lawyers to prepare a petition to Parliament; he
had the register inspected, and found that the Shifty had married two
poor couples; he bribed them to join in his petition, and inserted in it
that, in consideration of this marriage, he had settled a certain
farm and buildings on his wife for her separate use, and on her heirs
forever.

The petition was read in Parliament, and no objection taken. It was
considered a matter of course.

But, a few days afterward, one of the lawyers in the House, primed by a
person whose name I am not free to mention, recurred to the subject, and
said that, as regarded one of these c