e vexed and miss me,--I shall be down very soon,--sha' n't
I?"

"If you keep yourself easy, you will, ma'am."

"Pray, say so. And, Primmins--"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Every one, I fear, is neglecting your master. Be sure," and my mother's
lips approached close to Mrs. Primmins' ear, "be sure that you--air his
nightcap yourself."

"Tender creatures those women," soliloquized Mr. Squills as, after
clearing the room of all present save Mrs. Primmins and the nurse, he
took his way towards my father's study. Encountering the footman in the
passage, "John," said he, "take supper into your master's room, and make
us some punch, will you,--stiffish!"

CHAPTER II.

"Mr. Caxton, how on earth did you ever come to marry?" asked Mr.
Squills, abruptly, with his feet on the hob, while stirring up his
punch.

That was a home question, which many men might reasonably resent; but my
father scarcely knew what resentment was.

"Squills," said he, turning round from his books, and laying one finger
on the surgeon's arm confidentially,--"Squills," said he, "I myself
should be glad to know how I came to be married."

Mr. Squills was a jovial, good-hearted man,--stout, fat, and with fine
teeth, that made his laugh pleasant to look at as well as to hear. Mr.
Squills, moreover, was a bit of a philosopher in his way,--studied human
nature in curing its diseases; and was accustomed to say that Mr. Caxton
was a better book in himself than all he had in his library. Mr. Squills
laughed, and rubbed his hands.

My father resumed thoughtfully, and in the tone of one who moralizes:--

"There are three great events in life, sir,--birth, marriage, and death.
None know how they are born, few know how they die; but I suspect that
many can account for the intermediate phenomenon--I cannot."

"It was not for money, it must have been for love," observed Mr.
Squills; "and your young wife is as pretty as she is good."

"Ha!" said my father, "I remember."

"Do you, sir?" exclaimed Squills, highly amused. "How was it?"

My father, as was often the case with him, protracted his reply, and
then seemed rather to commune with himself than to answer Mr. Squills.

"The kindest, the best of men," he murmured,--"Abyssus Eruditionis.
And to think that he bestowed on me the only fortune he had to leave,
instead of to his own flesh and blood, Jack and Kitty,--all, at least,
that I could grasp, deficiente manu, of his Latin, his Greek, his
Orientals. What