ease—took out of it a neat pair of apothecary's
scales, with the accompanying weights, a
morsel of ginger, and a highly-polished silver
nutmeg-grater. "Dear Miss Sturch will
pardon an invalid?" said Mr. Phippen, beginning
to grate the ginger feebly into the
nearest tea-cup.

"Guess what has made me a quarter of an
hour late this morning," said the vicar,
looking mysteriously all round the table.

"Lying in bed, papa," cried the three
children, clapping their hands in triumph.

"What do you say, Miss Sturch?" asked
Doctor Chennery.

Miss Sturch smiled as usual, rubbed her
hands as usual, cleared her throat softly as
usual, looked fixedly at the tea-urn, and
begged, with the most graceful politeness, to
be excused if she said nothing.

"Your turn now, Phippen," said the vicar.
"Come, guess what has kept me late this
morning."

"My dear friend," said Mr. Phippen, giving
the doctor a brotherly squeeze of the hand,
"don't ask me to guess—I know! I saw what
you eat at dinner yesterday I saw what you
drank after dinner. No digestion could stand
it—not even yours. Guess what has made
you late this morning ' Pooh! pooh! I know.
You dear, good soul, you have been taking
physic!"

"Havn't touched a drop, thank God, for
the last ten years!" said Doctor Chennery,
with a look of devout gratitude. "No, no;
you're all wrong. The fact is, I have been
to church; and what do you think I have
been doing there? Listen, Miss Sturch—
listen, girls, with all your ears. Poor blind
young Frankland is a happy man at last—I
have married him to our dear Rosamond
Treverton this very morning!"

"Without telling us, papa!" cried the two
girls together, in their shrillest tones of
vexation and surprise. "Without telling us,
when you know how we should have liked to
see it!"

"That was the very reason why I did not
tell you, my dears," answered the vicar.
"Young Frankland has not got so used to his
affliction yet, poor fellow, as to bear being
publicly pitied and stared at in the character
of a blind bridegroom. He had such a
nervous horror of being an object of curiosity on
his wedding-day, and Rosamond, like a true,
kind-hearted girl as she is, was so anxious that
his slightest caprices should be humoured,
that we settled to have the wedding at an
hour in the morning when no idlers were
likely to be lounging about the neighbourhood
of the church. I was bound over to the
strictest secresy about the day, and so was
my clerk, Thomas. Excepting us two, and
the bride and bridegroom, and the bride's
father, Captain Treverton, nobody knew—"

"Treverton! " exclaimed Mr. Phippen,
holding his tea-cup, with the grated ginger in
the bottom of it, to be filled by Miss Sturch.

"Treverton! (No more tea, dear Miss Sturch.)
How very remarkable! I know the name.
(Fill up with water, if you please.) Tell me,
my dear doctor (many, many thanks; no
sugar, it turns acid on the stomach) is this
Miss Treverton whom you have been marrying
(many thanks again; no milk, either)
one of the Cornish Trevertons?"

"To be sure she is!" rejoined the vicar.
"Her father, Captain Treverton, is the head
of the family. Not that there's much family
to speak of now. The Captain, and Rosamond,
and that whimsical old brute of an
uncle of her's, Andrew Treverton, are the
last left, now, of the old stock—a rich family,
and a fine family, in former times—good
friends to Church and State, you know, and
all that—"

"Do you approve, sir, of Amelia having a
second helping of bread and marmalade?"
asked Miss Sturch, appealing to Doctor
Chennery with the most perfect unconsciousness
of interrupting him. Having no spare
room in her mind for putting things away in
until the appropriate time came for bringing
them out, Miss Sturch always asked questions
and made remarks the moment they occurred
to her, without waiting for the beginning,
middle, or end of any conversations that
might be proceeding in her presence. She
invariably looked the part of a listener to
perfection, but she never acted it except in the
case of talk that was aimed point-blank at
her own ears.

"O, give her a second helping, by all
means!" said the vicar, carelessly; "she
must over-eat herself, and she may as well
do it on bread and marmalade as on
anything else."

"My dear good soul," exclaimed Mr. Phippen,
"look what a wreck I am, and don't
talk in that shockingly thoughtless way of
letting our sweet little Amelia over-eat
herself. Load the stomach in youth, and what
becomes of the digestion in age? The thing
which vulgar people call the inside—I appeal
to Miss Sturch's interest in her charming
pupil as an excuse for going into
physiological particulars—is, in point of fact, an
Apparatus. Digestively considered, Miss
Sturch, even the fairest and youngest of us is
an Apparatus. Oil our wheels, if you like;
but clog them at your peril. Farinaceous
puddings and mutton-chops: mutton-chops
and farinaceous puddings—those should be
the parents' watchwords, if I had my way,
from one end of England to the other. Look
here, my sweet child, look at me. There is
no fun, dear, about these little scales, but
dreadful earnest. See! I put in the balance,
on one side, dry bread (stale, dry bread,
Amelia!) and on the other, some ounce
weights. 'Mr. Phippen! eat by weight. Mr.
Phippen! eat the same quantity, day by
day, to a hair's breadth. Mr. Phippen!
exceed your allowance (though it is only stale,
dry bread) if you dare!' Amelia, love, this