good-looking.'

'And she won't have me,' cried the other, but with a more subdued
expression. The doctor had consoled him, and given him a ray of hope.
And they went on their several ways.

The doctor resumed his soliloquy.

'Here is the semblance of something towards a solution of the
difficulty. If one of the damsels should marry, it would break the
combination. One will not by herself. But what if seven apple-faced
Hedgerows should propose simultaneously, seven notes in the key of A
minor, an octave below? Stranger things have happened. I have read of
six brothers who had the civility to break their necks in succession,
that the seventh, who was the hero of the story, might inherit
an estate. But, again and again, why should I trouble myself with
matchmaking? I had better leave things to take their own course.'

Still in his interior _speculum_ the doctor could not help seeing a dim
reflection of himself pronouncing the nuptial benediction on his two
young friends.

CHAPTER VII

THE VICAR AND HIS WIFE--FAMILIES OF LOVE--THE NEWSPAPER

Indulge Genio: carpamus dulcia: nostrum est
Quod vivis: cinis, et manes, et fabula fies.
Vive memor lethi: fugit hora: hoc quod loquor, inde est.
Persius.

Indulge thy Genius, while the hour's thine own:
Even while we speak, some part of it has flown.
Snatch the swift-passing good: 'twill end ere long
In dust and shadow, and an old wife's song.

'Agapetus and Agapete,' said the Reverend Doctor Opimian, the next
morning at breakfast, 'in the best sense of the words: that, I am
satisfied, is the relation between this young gentleman and his
handmaids.'

__Mrs. Opimian.__ Perhaps, doctor, you will have the goodness to make
your view of this relation a little more intelligible to me.

_The Rev. Dr. Opimian._ Assuredly, my dear. The word signifies 'beloved'
in its purest sense. And in this sense it was used by Saint Paul in
reference to some of his female co-religionists and fellow-labourers in
the vineyard, in whose houses he occasionally dwelt. And in this sense
it was applied to virgins and holy men, who dwelt under the same roof in
spiritual love.

_Mrs. Opimian._ Very likely, indeed. You are a holy man, doctor, but
I think, if you were a bachelor, and I were a maid, I should not trust
myself to be your aga--aga--

[Illustration: Should not trust myself to be your aga--aga. 076-44]