face?'

Bob sighed, and then Mrs. Loveday and Anne entered. ''Tis only a state-
paper that I fondly thought I should have a use for,' he said gloomily.
And, looking down as before, he cleared his voice, as if moved inwardly
to go on, and began to read in feeling tones from what proved to be his
nullified marriage licence:--

'"Timothy Titus Philemon, by permission Bishop of Bristol: To our well-
beloved Robert Loveday, of the parish of Overcombe, Bachelor; and Matilda
Johnson, of the same parish, Spinster. Greeting."'

Here Anne sighed, but contrived to keep down her sigh to a mere nothing.

'Beautiful language, isn't it!' said Bob. 'I was never greeted like that
afore!'

'Yes; I have often thought it very excellent language myself,' said Mrs.
Loveday.

'Come to that, the old gentleman will greet thee like it again any day
for a couple of guineas,' said the miller.

'That's not the point, father! You never could see the real meaning of
these things. . . . Well, then he goes on: "Whereas ye are, as it is
alleged, determined to enter into the holy estate of matrimony--" But
why should I read on? It all means nothing now--nothing, and the
splendid words are all wasted upon air. It seems as if I had been hailed
by some venerable hoary prophet, and had turned away, put the helm hard
up, and wouldn't hear.'

Nobody replied, feeling probably that sympathy could not meet the case,
and Bob went on reading the rest of it to himself, occasionally heaving a
breath like the wind in a ship's shrouds.

'I wouldn't set my mind so much upon her, if I was thee,' said his father
at last.

'Why not?'

'Well, folk might call thee a fool, and say thy brains were turning to
water.'

Bob was apparently much struck by this thought, and, instead of
continuing the discourse further, he carefully folded up the licence,
went out, and walked up and down the garden. It was startlingly apt what
his father had said; and, worse than that, what people would call him
might be true, and the liquefaction of his brains turn out to be no
fable. By degrees he became much concerned, and the more he examined
himself by this new light the more clearly did he perceive that he was in
a very bad way.

On reflection he remembered that since Miss Johnson's departure his
appetite had decreased amazingly. He had eaten in meat no more than
fourteen or fifteen ounces a day, but one-third of a quartern pudding on
an average, in vegetables only