ase, Dr. Staines, the simple question is, what does your
profession bring you in per annum?'"

"Oh! There! I always hated arithmetic, and now I abominate it."

"Then I was obliged to confess I had scarcely received a hundred pounds
in fees this year; but I told him the reason; this is such a small
district, and all the ground occupied. London, I said, was my sphere."

"And so it is," said Rosa, eagerly; for this jumped with her own little
designs. "Genius is wasted in the country. Besides, whenever anybody
worth curing is ill down here, they always send to London for a doctor."

"I told him so, dearest," said the lover. "But he answered me directly,
then I must set up in London, and as soon as my books showed an income
to keep a wife, and servants, and children, and insure my life for five
thousand pounds"--

"Oh, that is so like papa. He is director of an insurance company, so
all the world must insure their lives."

"No, dear, he was quite right there: professional incomes are most
precarious. Death spares neither young nor old, neither warm hearts
nor cold. I should be no true physician if I could not see my own
mortality." He hung his head and pondered a moment, then went on, sadly,
"It all comes to this--until I have a professional income of eight
hundred a year at least, he will not hear of our marrying; and the cruel
thing is, he will not even consent to an engagement. But," said the
rejected, with a look of sad anxiety, "you will wait for me without
that, dear Rosa?"

She could give him that comfort, and she gave it him with loving
earnestness. "Of course I will; and it shall not be very long. Whilst
you are making your fortune, to please papa, I will keep fretting, and
pouting, and crying, till he sends for you."

"Bless you, dearest! Stop!--not to make yourself ill! not for all the
world." The lover and the physician spoke in turn.

He came, all gratitude, to her side, and they sat, hand in hand,
comforting each other: indeed, parting was such sweet sorrow that they
sat, handed, and very close to one another, till Mr. Lusignan, who
thought five minutes quite enough for rational beings to take leave in,
walked into the room and surprised them. At sight of his gray head and
iron-gray eyebrows, Christopher Staines started up and looked confused;
he thought some apology necessary, so he faltered out, "Forgive me, sir;
it is a bitter parting to me, you may be sure."

Rosa's bosom heaved at these simple w