flower. Mark was more than delighted, he was fascinated; and young as
they were, the month he passed at home sufficed to enable him to tell
his passion, and to obtain a half-ready, half-timid acceptance of the
offer of his hand. All this time, the parents of these very youthful
lovers were as profoundly ignorant of what was going on, as their
children were unobservant of the height to which professional
competition had carried hostilities between their respective parents.
Doctors Woolston and Yardley no longer met even in consultations; or, if
they did meet in the house of some patient whose patronage was of too
much value to be slighted, it was only to dispute, and sometimes
absolutely to quarrel.

At the end of one short month, however, Mark was once more summoned to
his post on board the Rancocus, temporarily putting an end to his
delightful interviews with Bridget. The lovers had made Anne their
confidant, and she, well-meaning girl, seeing no sufficient reason why
the son of one respectable physician should not be a suitable match for
the daughter of another respectable physician, encouraged them in their
vows of constancy, and pledges to become man and wife at a future, but
an early day. To some persons all this may seem exceedingly improper, as
well as extremely precocious; but the truth compels us to say, that its
impropriety was by no means as obvious as its precocity. The latter it
certainly was, though Mark had shot up early, and was a man at a time of
life when lads, in less genial climates, scarcely get tails to their
coats; but its impropriety must evidently be measured by the habits of
the state of society in which the parties were brought up, and by the
duties that had been inculcated. In America, then, as now, but little
heed was taken by parents, more especially in what may be called the
middle classes, concerning the connections thus formed by their
children. So Long as the parties were moral, bore good characters, had