hand with me in all my hopes and acts.'

'Two years sounds a long time,' said Miss Wendover, musingly, 'and I
suppose, at your age and Bessie's, it is a long time; though at mine the
years flow onward with such a gliding motion that it is only one's
looking-glass, and the quarterly accounts, that tell one time is moving.
However, I have seen a good many of these two-year engagements--'

'Yes.'

'And I have seldom seen one of them last a twelvemonth.'

'They have ended unhappily?'

'Quite the contrary. They have ended in a premature wedding. The
young people have put their heads together, and have talked over the
flinty-hearted parents; and some bright morning, when the father and
mother have been in a good temper, the order for the trousseau has been
given, the bridesmaids have received notice, and in six weeks the whole
business was over, And the old people rather glad to have got rid of a
love-sick damsel and her attendant swain. There is no greater nuisance in
a house than engaged sweethearts. Who knows whether you and Bessie may
not be equally fortunate?'

'I hope we may be so,' said the Curate; 'but I don't think we shall make
ourselves obnoxious.'

'Oh, of course you think not. Every man believes himself superior to
every form of silliness, but I never saw a lover yet who did not lapse
sooner or later into mild idiocy.'