not lost upon the experienced doctor; he mentioned his suspicion to her father, and recommended my recall.  The latter would not listen to his counsel, and pronounced his diagnosis hasty and incorrect.  The physician bade him wait.  The patient did not rally, and her melancholy increased.  The doctor once more interceded, but not successfully.  Mr Fairman received his counsel with a hasty word, and Dr Mayhew left the parsonage in anger, telling the minister he would himself be answerable no longer for her safety.  A week elapsed, and Doctor Mayhew found it impossible to keep away.  The old friends met, more attached than ever for the parting which both had found it difficult to bear.  The lady was no better.  They held a conference—­it ended in my favour.  I had been exactly a month reinstated, when Doctor Mayhew, who could not rest thoroughly easy until our marriage was concluded, and, as he said, “the affair was off his hands,” took a convenient opportunity to intimate to Mr Fairman the many advantages of an early union.  The minister was anxious to postpone the ceremony to a distant period, which he had not courage himself to name.  This Mayhew saw, and was well satisfied that, if my happiness depended on the word of the incumbent, I should wait long before I heard it voluntarily given.  He told me so, and undertook “to bring the matter to a head” with all convenient speed.  He met with a hundred objections, for all of which he was prepared.  He heard his friend attentively, and with great deference, and then he answered.  What his answers were, I cannot tell—­powerful his reasoning must have been, since it argued the jealous parent into the necessity of arranging for an early marriage, and communicating with me that same day upon the views which he had for our future maintenance and comfort.

Nothing could exceed the gratification of Doctor Mayhew, that best and most successful of ambassadors, when he ran to me—­straight from the incumbent’s study—­to announce the perfect success of his diplomacy.  Had he been negotiating for himself, he could not have been in higher spirits.  Ellen was with me when he acquainted me, that in three months the treasure would be my own, and mine would be the privilege and right to cherish it.  He insisted that he should be rewarded on the instant with a kiss; and, in the exuberance of his feelings, was immodest enough to add, that “if he wasn’t godfather to the first, and if we did not call him Jacob after him, he’d give us over to our ingratitude, and not have another syllable to say to us.”

It was a curious occupation to contemplate the parent during the weeks that followed—­to observe all-powerful nature working in him, the chastened and the upright minister of heaven, as she operates upon the weakest and the humblest of mankind.  He lived for the happiness and prosperity of his child.  For that he was prepared to make every sacrifice a father might—­even the greatest—­that of parting with her.  Was it to be expected that