ird daughter of Jeremiah Juffles, Esq., late of Ryleigh
Grange."

I thought I had banished her from my heart for ever; but the suddenness
of the announcement was too much for me. The paper fell from my hand,
and I fainted.

"Poor boy, the change is too much for him!" I heard my father say. "He
must not leave his room again till he is stronger."

I soon returned to my senses, and by a great effort recovered my spirits
at the same time. I laughed and talked, and listened well pleased to my
father's glowing picture of the possibility of our retrieving our
fortunes by a marriage. I promised him I would sacrifice myself on the
hymeneal altar for the good of my family; that I would marry the
ugliest, oldest widow he could fix on; that I was anxious to be a
benedict on favourable terms; and at all my protestations my father
laughed aloud, and patted me on the shoulder. I could not believe it was
the same man who had snubbed and bullied me all my life. All of a sudden
he looked at his watch.

"Excuse me, my dear boy," he said, "I have engaged to dine with poor
Jeeks at five o'clock."

"With whom?" I asked, shuddering at the sound of the name.

"With our neighbour, poor Jeeks," he said. "He has had a terrible
dispensation, and is very much softened and improved."

"What dispensation?"

"Ah! I forgot: I was not to let you know. His poor son! he never
recovered the accident. Two or three of Mr Shookers's teeth fastened in
his head. He has been dead these five weeks: a most promising young
man."

I was amazingly shocked at the intelligence.

"Is it for him we are in mourning?" I enquired.

My father nodded.

"Then he was our cousin, after all?"

"There certainly seems to have been a relationship in the _Temp._ of
some of the _Geos._, as he called it. At all events the acknowledgment
of it does not cost much, and poor old Jeeks is delighted. Good-by. Take
care of yourself."

And so saying, he left me to my cogitations.

When once a favourable crisis, as it is called, takes place, the
amendment in the health of a man of twenty-two is very speedy. I was
aided also by seeing my father in such spirits. From day to day I picked
up strength, and at the end of a week I felt I could venture out.

It was June again--the poet's leafy month of June--the anniversary of
the very day on which I had so heroically enacted the part of the Master
of Ravenswood against the pigs. I sauntered through the park; a fate was
upon me; a