"He isn't a poor fellow," she answered,
sharply, " he's a very clever fellow ; can read,
and write, and keep accounts ; he was thinking of
trying for a clerk's situation. With that, and
my dressmaking, we should have done very well,
if we had once been married."

I hardly knew what to answer. I felt so exceedingly
sorry for the poor girl, and yet she
did not seem to feel her affliction. There was a
strange light in her eyes, and a glow on her poor
plain face, very unlike one whose whole hopes
in life had just been suddenly blasted.

"Doctor," the voice went to my heart despite
its bad grammar, and horrible English pronunciation,
dropped h's and all, " may I speak to you,
for I've nobody else, not a soul belonging to me,
but Johnny. Will you let him stop here for a
week or two?"

"A month, if necessary."

"Thank you. He shall be no trouble to you.
I'll take care of that. Only, there's one thing
to be done first. Doctor, I must marry Johnny."

She said it in such a matter-of-fact tone, that
at first I doubted if I had rightly heard.

"Marry him? Good Heavens. You don't
mean —- "

"Yes I do, sir. Just that."

"Why, he will never be able to do a hand's
turn of work for you — may never rise from his
bed; will have to be tended like an infant for
months, and may die after all."

"No matter, sir. He'd rather die with me
than with anybody. Johnny loves me. I'll
marry him."

There was a quiet determination about the
woman which put all argument aside. And,
Heaven forgive me! if it needs to be forgiven, I
tried none. I am an old-fashioned fellow, who
never was so happy as to have any woman loving
me; but I have known enough of women to feel
surprised at nothing they do, of this sort.
Besides, I thought, and think still, that Dorothy
was right, and that she did no more than was
perfectly natural under the circumstances.

"And now, sir, how is it to be managed?"

Of course the sooner it was managed the better,
and I found, on talking with her, that she had
already arranged it all in her own mind. She
had lived long enough in Scotland to be aware
that a Scotch irregular marriage was easy enough;
simply by the parties declaring themselves
husband and wife before witnesses; but still her
English feelings and habits clung to a marriage
"by a proper clergyman." She was considerably
relieved when I explained to her that if she put
in the banns that Friday night — they might be
"cried" on Sunday in the parish kirk, and
married by my friend the minister, to whom I
would explain the matter, on Monday morning.

"That will do," she said. "And now I must
go up-stairs and speak to Johnny."

What she said to him, or how he received it,
is impossible for me to relate. They told me
nothing, and I did not inquire. It was not my
business; indeed, it was nobody's business but
their own.

Now, though I may be a very foolish old
fellow, romantic, with the deep-seated desperate
romance which, my eldest niece avers, underlies
the hard and frigid Scotch character (I suspect
she has her own reasons for studying it so
deeply), still, I am not such a fool as I appear.
Though I did take these young people into my
house, and was quite prepared to assist at their
marriage, considering it the best thing possible
for both under the circumstances, still I was not
going to let them be married without having
fully investigated their antecedents.

I went to the circus, and there tried vainly to
discover the Herr von Stein, whose black-bearded
head I was sure I saw slipping away out of the
ring, where the " Highland Lassie," in a dirty
cotton frock, and a dirtier face, was careering
round and round on her beautiful horse, while in
the centre, on the identical table of the night
before — what an age it seemed ago! — a little fat
man in shirt-sleeves and stocking soles was
walking solitarily and solemnly upon bottles.

From him — Monsieur Ariel, who had been
inquiring more than once at my house to-day,
leaving his name as "Mr. Higgins"—I gained
full confirmation of Dorothy Hall's story. She
and John Stone were alike respectable and well-
conducted young people, and evidently great
favourites in the establishment. Then, and
afterwards, I also learnt a few other facts, which
people are slow to believe everywhere, especially
in Scotland, namely, that it is quite possible
for "play-actors," and even circus performers,
to be very honest and decent folk; and then,
in fact, it does not do to judge of anybody by his
calling, but solely by himself and his actions.

I hope, therefore, that I am passing no
uncharitable judgment on the Herr von Stein, if
I simply relate what occurred between us,
without making any comment on his actions.

Finding he could not escape me, and that
I sent message after message to him, he at last
returned into the ring, and there — while the
horses still went prancing round, the little
girl continued her leaping, and we caught the
occasional click-click of Monsieur Ariel practising
among his bottles — the father stood and heard
what I had to tell him concerning his son.

He was a father, and he seemed a good deal
shocked, for about three minutes. Then he
revived.

"It's very unfortunate, doctor; especially so
for me, with my large family. What am I to do
with him? What," becoming more energetic,
"what the devil am I to do with him?"

And — perhaps it was human nature, paternal
nature, in its lowest form, as you may often see
it in the police columns of the Times newspaper
—when I told him that the only thing he had to
do was to give his consent to his son's marriage
with Dorothy Hall, he appeared first greatly
astonished, and then as greatly relieved.

"My consent? Certainly. They're both five-
and-twenty—old enough to know their own minds
—and have been courting ever so long. She's
an excellent young woman; can earn a good