"Have you informed your relatives, my beloved?" said I to Magdalen, one
day after sending the above notice; "will any of them attend at your
marriage?"

"Uncle Sam will, I dare say," said Miss Crutty, "dear mamma's brother."

"And who WAS your dear mamma?" said I: for Miss Crutty's respected
parent had been long since dead, and I never heard her name mentioned in
the family.

Magdalen blushed, and cast down her eyes to the ground. "Mamma was a
foreigner," at last she said.

"And of what country?"

"A German. Papa married her when she was very young:--she was not of a
very good family," said Miss Crutty, hesitating.

"And what care I for family, my love!" said I, tenderly kissing the
knuckles of the hand which I held. "She must have been an angel who gave
birth to you."

"She was a shoemaker's daughter."

"A GERMAN SHOEMAKER! Hang 'em," thought I, "I have had enough of them;"
and so broke up this conversation, which did not somehow please me.

*****

Well, the day was drawing near: the clothes were ordered; the banns were
read. My dear mamma had built a cake about the size of a washing-tub;
and I was only waiting for a week to pass to put me in possession of
twelve thousand pounds in the FIVE per Cents, as they were in those
days, heaven bless 'em! Little did I know the storm that was brewing,
and the disappointment which was to fall upon a young man who really did
his best to get a fortune.

*****

"Oh, Robert," said my Magdalen to me, two days before the match was to
come off, "I have SUCH a kind letter from uncle Sam in London. I wrote
to him as you wished. He says that he is coming down to-morrow, that he
has heard of you often, and knows your character very well; and that he
has got a VERY HANDSOME PRESENT for us! What can it be, I wonder?"

"Is he rich, my soul's adored?" says I.

"He is a bachelor, with a fine trade, and nobody to leave his money to."

"His present can't be less than a thousand pounds?" says I.

"Or, perhaps, a silver tea-set, and some corner-dishes," says she.

But we could not agree to this: it was too little--too mean for a man
of her uncle's wealth; and we both determined it must be the thousand
pounds.

"Dear good uncle! he's to be here by the coach," says Magdalen. "Let
us ask a little party to meet him." And so we did, and so they came: my
father and mother, old Crutty in his best wig, and the parson who was
to marry us the next day. The coach was to come in at six.