the street, where the winter sun did
sometimes shine, and which was at all events
enlivened by cheerful faces and voices passing
along; I carried a heavy heart towards the
long, low breakfast-room in which my uncle
sat. It was a large room with a small fire,
and there was a great bay window in it which
the rain had marked in the night as if with
the tears of houseless people. It stared upon
a raw yard, with a cracked stone pavement,
and some rusted iron railings half uprooted,
whence an ugly out-building that had once been
a dissecting-room (in the time of the great
surgeon who had mortgaged the house to my
uncle), stared at it.

We rose so early always, that at that time
of the year we breakfasted by candle-light.
When I went into the room, my uncle was so
contracted by the cold, and so huddled
together in his chair behind the one dim candle,
that I did not see him until I was close to
the table.

As I held out my hand to him, he caught
up his stick (being infirm, he always walked
about the house with a stick), and made a
blow at me, and said, "You fool!"

''Uncle." I returned, "I didn't expect you
to be so angry as this." Nor had I expected
it, though he was a hard and angry old man.

"You didn't expect!" said he; "when
did you ever expect? When did you ever
calculate, or look forward, you contemptible
dog?"

"These are hard words, uncle!"

"Hard words? Feathers, to pelt such
an idiot as you with," said he. "Here!
Betsy Snap! Look at him!"

Betsey Snap was a withered, hard-favored,
yellow old woman— our only domestic—
always employed, at this time of the morning,
in rubbing my uncle's legs. As my uncle
adjured her to look at me, he put his lean
grip on the crown of her head, she kneeling
beside him, and turned her face towards me.
An involuntary thought connecting them both
with the Dissecting Room, as it must often
have been in the surgeon's time, passed across
my mind in the midst of my anxiety.

"Look at the snivelling milksop !" said my
uncle. "Look at the baby ! This is the
gentleman who, people say, is nobody's enemy
but his own. This is the gentleman who can't
say no. This is the gentleman who was
making such large profits in his business that
he must needs take a partner, t'other day.
This is the gentleman who is going to marry
a wife without a penny, and who falls into
the hands of Jezabels who are speculating on
my death!"

I knew, now, how great my uncle's rage
was; for nothing short of his being almost
beside himself would have induced him to
utter that concluding word, which he held
in such repugnance that it was never spoken
or hinted at before him on any account.

"On my death," he repeated, as if he were
defying me by defying his own abhorrence of
the word. "On my death— death— Death!
But I'll spoil the speculation. Eat your last
under this roof, you feeble wretch, and may it
choke you!"

You may suppose that I had not much
appetite for the breakfast to which I was
bidden in these terms; but, I took my accustomed
seat. I saw that I was repudiated
henceforth by my uncle; still I could bear that
very well, possessing Christiana's heart.

He emptied his basin of bread and milk as
usual, only that he took it on his knees with
his chair turned away from the table where I
sat. When he had done, he carefully snuffed
out the candle; and the cold, slate-coloured,
miserable day looked in upon us.

"Now, Mr. Michael," said he, "before we
part, I should like to have a word with these
ladies in your presence."

"As you will, sir," I returned; "but you
deceive yourself, and wrong us, cruelly, if you
suppose that there is any feeling at stake in
this contract but pure, disinterested, faithful
love."

To this, he only replied, "You lie!" and
not one other word.

We went, through half-thawed snow and
half-frozen rain, to the house where Christiana
and her mother lived. My uncle knew them
very well. They were sitting at their breakfast
and were surprised to see us at that hour.

"Your servant, ma'am," said my uncle, to
the mother. "You divine the purpose of my
visit, I dare say, ma'am. I understand there
is a world of pure, disinterested, faithful love
cooped up here. I am happy to bring it all
it wants, to make it complete. I bring you
your son-in-law, ma'am— and you, your
husband, miss. The gentleman is a perfect
stranger to me, but I wish him joy of his wise
bargain."

He snarled at me as he went out, and I
never saw him again.

It is altogether a mistake (continued the
poor relation) to suppose that my dear
Christiana, over-persuaded and influenced by
her mother, married a rich man, the dirt from
whose carriage wheels is often, in these
changed times, thrown upon me as she rides
by. No, no. She married me.

The way we came to be married rather
sooner than we intended, was this. I took a
frugal lodging and was saving and planning
for her sake, when, one day, she spoke to me
with great earnestness, and said:

"My dear Michael, I have given you my
heart. I have said that I loved you, and I have
pledged myself to be your wife. I am as
much yours through all changes of good and
evil as if we had been married on the day
when such words passed between us. I
know you well, and know that if we should be
separated and our union broken off, your
whole life would be shadowed, and all that
might, even now, be stronger in your