as ever!"

What could old Mr. Blyth, what could any man of heart and honor, oppose
to such an answer as this? Nothing. The marriage took place; and
Valentine's father tried hard, and not altogether vainly, to feel as
sanguine about future results as Valentine himself.

For several months--how short the time seemed, when they looked back on
it in after-years!--the happiness of the painter and his wife more than
fulfilled the brightest hopes which they had formed as lovers. As for
the doctor's cautious words, they were hardly remembered now; or, if
recalled, were recalled only to be laughed over. But the time of bitter
grief, which had been appointed, though they knew it not, came
inexorably, even while they were still lightly jesting at all medical
authority round the painter's fireside. Lavinia caught a severe cold.
The cold turned to rheumatism, to fever, then to general debility, then
to nervous attacks--each one of these disorders, being really but so
many false appearances, under which the horrible spinal malady was
treacherously and slowly advancing in disguise.

When the first positive symptoms appeared, old Mr. Blyth acted with all
his accustomed generosity towards his son. "My purse is yours,
Valentine," said he; "open it when you like; and let Lavinia, while
there is a chance for her, have the same advice and the same remedies
as if she was the greatest duchess in the land." The old man's
affectionate advice was affectionately followed. The most renowned
doctors in England prescribed for Lavinia; everything that science and
incessant attention could do, was done; but the terrible disease still
baffled remedy after remedy, advancing surely and irresistibly, until
at last the doctors themselves lost all hope. So far as human science