self a boy, when we were nothing whatsoever of
the kind, and only the most ardent and faithful
pair of young lovers that had existed since the
time of Abelard and Heloïse, or Florio and
Biancafiore. As, however, our parents and
guardians were not made of adamant or Roman
cement, we were not permitted to add another
couple to the catalogue of historically unfortunate
lovers. Uncle Bonsor and Mr. and Mrs.
Captain Standfast (my Tilly's papa and mamma)
at last relented. Much was effected towards
this desirable consummation by my arguments
against celibacy, contained in eight pages foolscap,
and of which I made copies in triplicate for
the benefit of our hard-hearted relatives. More
was done by Tilly threatening to poison herself.
Most, however, was accomplished by our both
making up our minds to tell a piece thereof to
our parents and guardians, and telling them that
if they did not acquiesce in our views we would
run away and get married at the very first
opportunity. There was no just cause or
impediment. We were young, healthy, and had
plenty of money between us. Loads of money—
as we thought then. As to personal appearance,
Tilly was simply Lovely, and my whiskers had
not been ill spoken of in the best society in
Dover. So it was all arranged, and on
the twenty-seventh of December, eighteen
fifty dash, being the morrow of Boxing-day,
Alfred Starling, gent., was to be united in
the holy bonds of matrimony to Matilda, only
daughter of Captain Rockleigh Standfast, R.N.,
of Snargatestone Villa, Dover.

I had been left an orphan at a very early age,
and the guardian of my moderate property
(including the shares in the Caerlyon-upon-Usk
Something or Other concern), and guardian of my
person, was my uncle Bonsor. He sent me to
Merchant Taylors', and afterwards for a couple
of years to college at Bonn, on the Rhine. He
afterwards — to keep me out of mischief, I believe
—paid a handsome premium for my entrance into
the counting-house of Messrs. Baum, Brömm, and
Boompjees, German merchants, of Finsbury
Circus, under whose tutelage I did as little as I
liked in the corresponding department, and was
much envied by my brother salaried clerks. My
uncle Bonsor resided chiefly at Dover, where he
was making large sums of money by government
contracts, whose objects apparently consisted in
boring holes in the chalk and then filling them
up again. My uncle was, perhaps, the most
respectable man in Europe, and was well known
in the city of London as "Responsible Bonsor."
He was one of those men who are confidently
said to be "good for any amount." He had a
waistcoat — worn winter and summer — a
waistcoat that wavered in hue between a sunny buff
and a stony drab, which looked so ineffably
respectable that I am certain if it had been
presented at the pay-counter of any bank in
Lombard-street the clerks would have cashed it at
once for any amount of notes or gold demanded.
My uncle Bonsor entrenched himself behind this
astonishing garment as behind a fortification,
and fired guns of respectability at you. That
waistcoat had carried resolutions, assuaged the
ire of indignant shareholders, given stability to
wavering schemes, and brought in thumping
subscriptions for burnt-out Caffres and destitute
Fee-jees. It was a safe waistcoat, and Bonsor
was a safe man. He was mixed up with a good
many companies; but whenever a projector or
promoter came to him with a plan, my responsible
uncle would confer with his waistcoat, and
within five minutes would either tell the
projector or promoter to walk out of his counting-
house, or put his name down for a thousand
pounds. And the scheme was made that
Responsible Bonsor put his name down for.

It was arranged that I was to go down to
Dover on Christmas-eve, staying at my uncle's,
and that we were to dine all together at
Captain Standfast's on Christmas-day. Boxing-
day was to be devoted to bonnets on the part of
my beloved, and to the signing and sealing of
certain releases, deeds, covenants, and other
documents connected with law and money, on the
part of self, my uncle, and my prospective papa
in-!aw, and on the twenty-seventh we were to
be MARRIED.

Of course my connexion with Messrs. Baum,
Brömm, and Boompjees was brought to an
amicable termination. I gave the clerks a
grand treat at a hostelry in Newgate-street,
and had the pleasure of receiving, at a
somewhat late hour, and at least eighty-seven
times, a unanimous choral assurance, not
unaccompanied by hiccups, that I was a "jolly good
fellow." I was unwillingly compelled to defer
my departure for Dover till the 8.30 P.M. express
mail on Christmas-eve, being engaged to a farewell
dinner at four, at the mansion of our Mr. Max
Boompjees, junior and dinner-giving partner in
the firm, in Finsbury Circus. A capital dinner
it was, and very merry. I left the gentlemen
over their wine, and had just time to pop into a
cab and catch the mail train at London Bridge.

You know how quickly time passes on a railway
journey when one has dined comfortably
before starting. I seemed to have been
telegraphed down to Dover, so rapidly were the
eighty odd miles skimmed over. But it now
becomes my duty to impart to you the
knowledge of my Terrible Misfortune. In my youth,
a little boy at a preparatory school near Ashford,
I had experienced a touch of the dreadful disease
of the Kentish marshes. How long this malady
had lain concealed in my frame, and by what
accident of time or temperature it became again
evolved, I had no means of judging, but by the
time the train arrived at Dover I was in the
throes of acute AGUE.

It was a horrible, persistent, regular shivering
and shaking, a racking palsy, a violent
tremor, accompanied, I am sure, by fever,
for my temples throbbed, and I experienced
an almost deafening, jarring, rattling noise
in the head. My blood seemed all in
revolt, and surging backwards and forwards in my
veins, and my unhappy body swayed from side
to side with the distempered current. On the
platform I staggered to and fro; and the porter,