but alike in a largeness of soul and freedom from pettiness, which
made their forty years of united life something out of the common. She
believed in him; in the darkest season of disappointment she bade him
remember that a man should pursue those things for which he is most
fitted, let them be what they will. Her "noble and self-sacrificing"
words brought him comfort, and banished "the spectre of a wasted
life that had passed before him--a vision of that servant who hid his
talent in a napkin and buried it."

At last the gleams of promise, which had begun to gather, broke
through the clouds. On the sudden death of Professor Jamieson, his
good friend Edward Forbes was called away in the spring of 1854 to
take the Edinburgh professorship. At a few days' notice Huxley was
lecturing as Forbes's substitute at the Royal School of Mines. In July
he was appointed permanently, with a salary for his course of £100
a year. A few days later his income was doubled. Forbes had held two
lectureships; the man who had accepted the other drew back, and it
was given to Huxley. In August he was "entrusted with the Coast Survey
Investigations under the Geological Survey," becoming the regular
Naturalist to the Survey the following year, with pay of £200,
afterwards increased to £400, rising to £600. The way was clear; the
Heathorn family had already determined to come home. Miss Heathorn had
been very ill; she was still far from strong, and, indeed, one gloomy
doctor only gave her six months to live. The lover defied him: "I
shall marry her all the same;" but the gloomy doctor was alone in his
opinion, and, indeed, she lived till she was nearly eighty-nine. The
marriage, which was to bring so much active happiness in a life of
much struggle and stress, was celebrated on July 1, 1855. They had
become engaged at twenty-two; they had waited and striven for eight
years; they were rewarded by forty years of mutual love and support.