description that he was obliged to quit the service, and, for a time,
retire upon his half-pay. For many years he looked forward to the period
when he could resume his career:--but in vain; the wound broke out again
and again; fresh splinters of the bone continually worked out, and he
was doomed to constant disappointment. At last it healed; but years of
suffering had quenched the ardour of youth, and when he did apply for
employment, his services had been forgotten. He received a cool
negative, almost consonant to his wishes: and returned, without feeling
mortified, to the cottage we have described, where he lived a secluded
yet not unhappy life. His wants were few, and his half-pay more than
adequate to supply them. A happy contemplative indolence, arising from a
well-cultivated mind, feeding rather upon its previous acquirements than
adding to its store--an equanimity of disposition, and a habit of rigid
self-command--were the characteristics of Edward Forster; whom I shall
now awaken, that we may proceed with our narrative.

"Well, I do declare, Mr Forster, you have had a famous nap," cried Mrs
Beazely, in a tone of voice so loud as to put an immediate end to his
slumber, as she entered his room with some hot water to assist him in
that masculine operation, the diurnal painful return of which has been
considered to be more than tantamount in suffering to the occasional
"pleasing punishment which women bear." Although this cannot be proved
until ladies are endowed with beards (which Heaven forfend!), or some
modern Tiresias shall appear to decide the point, the assertion appears
to be borne out, if we reason by analogy from human life; where we find
that it is not the heavy blow of sudden misfortune tripping the ladder
of our ambition and laying us prostrate, which constitutes life's
intermittent "fitful fever," but the thousand petty vexations of hourly
occurrence.----We return to Mrs Beazely, who continued--"Why, it's nine
o'clock, Mr Forster, and a nice fresh morning it is too, after last