ssent,--too often
falsely,--to what is said to me by a passing acquaintance. In spite
of what the Scripture says, I think it is one of the greatest
privileges of a brother that he may call his brother a fool."

"Shall you desire to call your husband a fool?"

"My husband!"

"He will, I suppose, be at least as dear to you as a brother?"

"I never had a brother."

"Your sister, then! It is the same, I suppose?"

"If I were to have a husband, I hope he would be the dearest to me
of all. Unless he were so, he certainly would not be my husband. But
between a man and his wife there does not spring up that playful,
violent intimacy admitting of all liberties, which comes from early
nursery associations; and then, there is the difference of sex."

"I should not like my wife to call me a fool," he said.

"I hope she may never have occasion to do so, Mr. Glascock. Marry an
English wife in your own class,--as, of course, you will,--and then
you will be safe."

"But I have set my heart fast on marrying an American wife," he said.

"Then I can't tell what may befall you. It's like enough, if you do
that, that you may be called by some name you will think hard to
bear. But you'll think better of it. Like should pair with like, Mr.
Glascock. If you were to marry one of our young women, you would lose
in dignity as much as she would lose in comfort." Then they parted,
and she went off to say farewell to other guests. The manner in which
she had answered what he had said to her had certainly been of a
nature to stop any further speech of the same kind. Had she been
gentle with him, then he would certainly have told her that she was
the American woman whom he desired to take with him to his home in
England.

CHAPTER LVII.

DOROTHY'S FATE.

Towards the end of February Sir Peter Mancrudy declared Miss Stanbury
to be out of danger, and Mr. Martin began to be sprightly on the
subject, taking to himself no inconsiderable share of the praise
accruing to the medical faculty in Exeter generally for the saving of
a life so valuable to the city. "Yes, Mr. Burgess," Sir Peter said
to old Barty of the bank, "our friend will get over it this time,
and without any serious damage to her constitution, if she will only
take care of herself." Barty made some inaudible grunt, intended
to indicate his own indifference on the subject, and expressed his
opinion to the chief clerk that old Jemima Wideawake,--as he was
pleased to call