I doubt
not, prove in every respect a husband deserving and worthy of her; and
that from the lips of a doting old grandpapa must be esteemed high
praise. You will see him presently.'

I did see him often, and quite agreed in the rector's estimate of his
future grandson-in-law. I have not frequently seen a finer-looking
young man--his age was twenty-six; and certainly one of a more
honourable and kindly spirit, of a more genial temper than he, has
never come within my observation. He had drawn a great prize in the
matrimonial lottery, and, I felt, deserved his high fortune.

They were married at the time agreed upon, and the day was kept not
only at Elm Park, and in its neighbourhood, but throughout 'our'
parish, as a general holiday. And, strangely enough--at least I have
never met with another instance of the kind--it was held by our entire
female community, high as well as low, that the match was a perfectly
equal one, notwithstanding that wealth and high worldly position were
entirely on the bridegroom's side. In fact, that nobody less in the
social scale than the representative of an old territorial family
ought, in the nature of things, to have aspired to the hand of Agnes
Townley, appeared to have been a foregone conclusion with everybody.
This will give the reader a truer and more vivid impression of the
bride, than any words or colours I might use.

The days, weeks, months of wedded life flew over Mr and Mrs Arbuthnot
without a cloud, save a few dark but transitory ones which I saw now
and then flit over the husband's countenance as the time when he
should become a father drew near, and came to be more and more spoken
of. 'I should not survive her,' said Mr Arbuthnot, one day in reply to
a chance observation of the rector's, 'nor indeed desire to do so.'
The gray-headed man seized and warmly pressed the husband's hand, and
tears of sympathy filled his eyes; yet did he, nevertheless, as in
duty bound, utter grave words on the sinfulness of despair under any
circumstances, and the duty, in all trials, however heavy, of patient
submission to the will of God. But the venerable gentleman spoke in a
hoarse and broken voice, and it was easy to see he _felt_ with Mr
Arbuthnot that the reality of an event, the bare possibility of which
shook them so terribly, were a cross too heavy for human strength to
bear and live.

It was of course decided that the expected heir or heiress should be
intrusted to a wet-nurse, and