ainly."

"And therefore I should be remiss, both as regards duty and manners,
if I did not take this opportunity of assuring you how much
gratification I feel in becoming thus bound up in family affection
with you and Miss Rachel. Family ties are sweet bonds of sanctified
love; and as I have none of my own,--nearer, that is, than Geelong,
the colony of Victoria, where my mother and brother and sisters have
located themselves,--I shall feel the more pleasure in taking you and
Miss Rachel to my heart."

This was complimentary to Mrs. Ray; but with her peculiar feelings as
to the expediency of people having their own belongings, she almost
thought that it would have been better for all parties if Mr. Prong
had gone to Geelong with the rest of the Prong family: this opinion,
however, she did not express. As to taking Mr. Prong to her heart,
she felt some doubts of her own capacity for such a performance.
It would be natural for her to love a son-in-law. She had loved
Mr. Prime very dearly, and trusted him thoroughly. She would have
been prepared to love Luke Rowan, had fate been propitious in that
quarter. But she could not feel secure as to loving Mr. Prong. Such
love, moreover, should come naturally, of its own growth, and not be
demanded categorically as a right. It certainly was a pity that Mr.
Prong had not made himself happy, with that happiness for which he
sighed, in the bosom of his family at Geelong. "I'm sure you're very
kind," Mrs. Ray had said.

"And when we are thus united in the bonds of this world," continued
Mr. Prong, "I do hope that other bonds, more holy in their nature
even than those of family, more needful even than them, may join us
together. Dorothea has for some months past been a constant attendant
at my church--"

"Oh, I couldn't leave Mr. Comfort; indeed I couldn't," said Mrs. Ray
in alarm. "I couldn't go away from my own parish church was it ever
so."

"No, no; not altogether, perhaps. I am not sure that it would be
desirable. But will it not be sweet, Mrs. Ray, when we are bound
together as one family, to pour forth our prayers in holy communion
together?"

"I think so much of my own parish church, Mr. Prong," Mrs. Ray
replied. After that Mr. Prong did not, on that occasion, press the
matter further, and soon turned round his chair so as to relieve the
three ladies behind him.

"I think we had better be going, Mr. Prong," said Mrs. Prime, rising
from her seat with a display of anger