wo next following chapters.

CHAPTER VIII.--THE SQUIRE'S TALE.

In a town that shall be nameless, but which was situate somewhere or
other in the West of England, there lived some years since--no matter
how many--a young man, called Job Vivian, who practised as a surgeon,
apothecary, and so forth. He was about two or three and twenty years of
age when he first commenced his professional career in this place, and
very shortly afterwards he married the girl of his affections, to whom
he had been sincerely attached from his very boyhood; and as they were
both exceedingly good-looking--in fact, she was beautiful--they of
course made what the world terms an imprudent marriage. But Job himself
thought very differently, and amidst all the cares and vicissitudes that
attended several years of his wedded life, he never passed a day without
breathing a prayer of thankfulness to Heaven for having blessed him with
so excellent a helpmate. But though rich in domestic comforts, all the
rest of Job's affairs, for a long time, went on unprosperously. He
certainly acquired sufficient practice in the course of a few years to
occupy a great portion of his time, by night as well as by day, but then
it was not what is termed a paying practice. In fact, nearly the whole
of his business was either amongst the poorer classes, who couldn't pay,
the dishonest, who wouldn't, or the thoughtless and dilatory, who, if
they did so, took a very long time about it. In spite, therefore, of all
his labour and assiduity, the actual amount he received from his
practice fell short of his yearly expenditure, which obliged him to dip
into his small independent property, consisting of a few houses in an
obscure part of the town; which, as he became every year more heavily
involved, he was erelong compelled to mortgage so deeply, that what
between some of his tenants running away without paying their rent, the
costs of repairs, and money to be paid for interest, a very small
portion of the annual proceeds ever reached Job's pockets; and at last,
to complete the whole, a virulent fever broke out in the very midst of
this precious property, of so obstinate and dangerous a kind, as for
some months to defy the skill of all the medical men of the place,
nearly depopulating the whole neighbourhood, which in consequence became
all but deserted.

Just at this critical time poor Job Vivian received a notice from his
mortgagee--a rich old timber merchant, who lived a