her great eyes. "Refused?" said she, faintly.

"Yes," said he, sadly. "Your father is a man of business; and he took
a mere business view of our love: he asked me directly what provision
I could make for his daughter and her children. Well, I told him I had
three thousand pounds in the Funds, and a good profession; and then I
said I had youth, health, and love, boundless love, the love that can
do, or suffer, the love that can conquer the world."

"Dear Christopher! And what COULD he say to all that?"

"He ignored it entirely. There! I'll give you his very words. He said,
'In that case, Dr. Staines, the simple question is, what does your
profession bring you in per annum?'"

"Oh! There! I always hated arithmetic, and now I abominate it."

"Then I was obliged to confess I had scarcely received a hundred pounds
in fees this year; but I told him the reason; this is such a small
district, and all the ground occupied. London, I said, was my sphere."

"And so it is," said Rosa, eagerly; for this jumped with her own little
designs. "Genius is wasted in the country. Besides, whenever anybody
worth curing is ill down here, they always send to London for a doctor."

"I told him so, dearest," said the lover. "But he answered me directly,
then I must set up in London, and as soon as my books showed an income
to keep a wife, and servants, and children, and insure my life for five
thousand pounds"--