send for a medical man, who pronounced Titmouse to be in
danger of a bilious fever, and to require rest and care and medical
attendance for some days to come. This was rather "too much of a good
thing" for old Quirk; but there was no remedy. Foreseeing that Titmouse
would be thrown constantly, for some little time to come, into Miss
Quirk's company, her prudent parent enjoined upon Mrs. Alias, his
sister, the necessity of impressing on his daughter's mind the great
uncertainty which, after all, existed as to Titmouse's prospects; and
the consequent necessity there was for her to regulate her conduct with
a view to either failure or success--to keep her affections, as it were,
in abeyance. But the fact was, that Miss Quirk had so often heard the
subject of Titmouse's brilliant expectations talked of by her father,
and knew so well his habitual prudence and caution, that she looked upon
Titmouse's speedy possession of ten thousand a-year as a matter almost
of certainty. She was a girl of some natural shrewdness, but of an early
inclination to maudlin sentimentality. Had she been blest with the
vigilant and affectionate care of a mother as she grew up, (that parent
having died when Miss Quirk was but a child,) and been thrown among a
set of people different from those who constantly visited at Alibi
House--and of whom a very _favorable_ specimen has been laid before the
reader--Miss Quirk might really have become a very sensible and
agreeable girl. As it was, her manners had contracted a certain
coarseness, which at length overspread her whole character; and the
selfish and mercenary motives by which she could not fail to perceive
all her father's conduct regulated, gradually infected herself. She
resolved, therefore, to be governed by the considerations so urgently
pressed upon her by both her father and her aunt.

It was several days before Titmouse was allowed, by his medical man, to
quit his bedroom; and it is impossible for any woman not to be touched
by the sight of a sudden change effected in a man's appearance by severe
indisposition and suffering, even be that man so poor a creature as
Titmouse. He was very pale, and considerably reduced by the serious
nature of the attack, and of the powerful treatment with which it had
been encountered. When he made his first appearance before Miss Quirk,
one afternoon, with somewhat feeble gait, and a languid air which
mitigated, if it did not obliterate, the foolish and concei