iscouraging: attempt on Cadiz, attempt on the
lines of St. Roch, those attempts, or rather resolutions to attempt,
had died in the birth, or almost before it. Men blamed Torrijos, little
knowing his impediments. Boyd was still patient at his post: others of
the young English (on the strength of the subscribed moneys) were said
to be thinking of tours,--perhaps in the Sierra Morena and neighboring
Quixote regions. From that Torrijos enterprise it did not seem that
anything considerable would come.

On the edge of winter, here at home, Sterling was married: "at
Christchurch, Marylebone, 2d November, 1830," say the records. His
blooming, kindly and true-hearted Wife had not much money, nor had he as
yet any: but friends on both sides were bountiful and hopeful; had
made up, for the young couple, the foundations of a modestly effective
household; and in the future there lay more substantial prospects. On
the finance side Sterling never had anything to suffer. His Wife, though
somewhat languid, and of indolent humor, was a graceful, pious-minded,
honorable and affectionate woman; she could not much support him in the
ever-shifting struggles of his life, but she faithfully attended him in
them, and loyally marched by his side through the changes and nomadic
pilgrimings, of which many were appointed him in his short course.

Unhappily a few weeks after his marriage, and before any household was
yet set up, he fell dangerously ill; worse in health than he had ever
yet been: so many agitations crowded into the last few months had been
too much for him. He fell into dangerous pulmonary illness, sank ever
deeper; lay for many weeks in his Father's house utterly prostrate,
his young Wife and his Mother watching over him; friends, sparingly
admitted, long despairing of his life. All prospects in this world were
now apparently shut upon him.

After a while, came hope again, and kindlier symptoms: but the doctors
intimated that there lay consumption in the question, and that perfect
recovery was not to be looked for. For weeks he had been confined to
bed; it was several months before he could leave his sick-room,
where the visits of a few friends had much cheered him. And now when
delivered, readmitted to the air of day again,--weak as he was, and with
such a liability still lurking in him,--what his young partner and he
were to do, or whitherward to turn for a good course of life, was by no
means too apparent.

One of his Mot