overed rapidly--so rapidly that he was soon able to resume his
medical studies and prosecute them with vigour. No bad effects of the
accident remained, yet he was an altered man--not altered in appearance
or in character, but in spirit. He was still off-hand in manner,
handsome in face and figure, hearty in society, but earnest and grave--
very grave--in private. He pored over his books, and strove,
successfully too, to master the difficulties of the healing art; but do
what he would, and fight against it as he might, he was constantly
distracted by a pretty face with bright sparkling eyes and a strangely
sad expression coming between him and the page. He made continual
inquiries after the owner of the sparkling eyes in every direction
without success, and at last got into the habit when walking, of looking
earnestly at people as if he expected to meet with some one. "If I had
got into this state," he sometimes said to himself, "because of being
merely in love with a pretty face, I should consider myself a silly
nincompoop; but it is such a terrible thing for so sweet and young a
creature to be chained to a man who must in the nature of things, land
her in beggary and break her heart." Thus he deceived himself as to his
main motive. Poor Lewis!

One morning Captain Wopper got up a little earlier than usual, and began
a series of performances which Mrs Roby had long ago styled "rampadgin"
round his garret.

The reader may have discovered by this time that the Captain was no
ordinary man. Whatever he did in connection with himself was done with
almost superhuman energy and noise. Since the commencement of his
residence in the garret he had unwittingly subjected the nerves of poor
Mrs Roby to such a variety of shocks, that the mere fact of her reason
remaining on its throne was an unquestionable proof of a more than
usually powerful constitution. It could not well be otherwise. The
Captain's limbs resembled the limbs of oaks in regard to size and
toughness. His spirits were far above "proof." His organs were
cathedral organs compared with the mere barrel-organs of ordinary men.
On the other hand, the "cabin" in Grubb's Court was but a flimsy
tenement; its plank floorings were thin, and its beams and rafters slim
and somewhat loose owing to age, so that when the captain snored, which
he did regularly and continuously, it was as if a mastiff had got inside
a double-bass and were growling hideously.

But Mrs R