months he left the town, and Crabbe set up for himself as his successor.
But he was still poorly qualified for his profession, his skill in
surgery being notably deficient. He attracted only the poorest class of
patients--the fees ware small and uncertain and his prospects of an
early marriage, or even of earning his living as a single man, seemed as
far off as ever. Moreover, he was again cut off from congenial
companionship, with only such relief as was afforded by the occasional
presence in the town of various Militia regiments, the officers of which
gave him some of their patronage and society.

He had still happily the assurance of the faithful devotion of Miss
Elmy. Her father had been a tanner in the Suffolk town of Beccles, where
her mother still resided, and where Miss Elmy paid her occasional
visits. The long journey from Aldeburgh to Beccles was often taken by
Crabbe, and the changing features of the scenery traversed were
reproduced, his son tells us, many years afterwards in the beautiful
tale of _The Lover's Journey_. The tie between Crabbe and Miss Elmy was
further strengthened by a dangerous fever from which Crabbe suffered in
1778-79, while Miss Elmy was a guest under his parents' roof. This was
succeeded by an illness of Miss Elmy, when Crabbe was in constant
attendance at Parham Hall. His intimacy with the Tovells was moreover to
be strengthened by a sad event in that family, the death of their only
child, an engaging girl of fourteen. The social position of the Tovells,
and in greater degree their fortune, was superior to that of the
Crabbes, and the engagement of their niece to one whose prospects were
so little brilliant had never been quite to their taste. But henceforth
this feeling was to disappear. This crowning sorrow in the family
wrought more cordial feelings. Crabbe was one of those who had known and
been kind to their child, and such were now,