a heavy loan, on which, in his situation, he could offer no security but his word. Of this my father was quite capable. He was a man of dogmas, and he was sure to have a precept adapted to the conduct of a gentleman toward a friend in pecuniary embarrassment. What's more, he was sure to adhere to it. Mr. Vernor, I believe, got on his feet, paid his debt, and owed my father an eternal gratitude. His little daughter was the apple of his eye, and he pledged himself to bring her up to be the wife of his benefactor's son. So our fate was fixed, parentally, and we have been educated for each other. I've not seen my betrothed since she was a very plain-faced little girl in a sticky pinafore, hugging a one-armed doll—of the male sex, I believe—as big as herself. Mr. Vernor is in what's called the Eastern trade, and has been living these many years at Smyrna. Isabel has grown up there in a white-walled garden, in an orange grove, between her father and her governess. She is a good deal my junior; six months ago she was seventeen; when she is eighteen we're to marry!"
He related all this calmly enough, without the accent of complaint, dryly rather and doggedly, as if he were weary of thinking of it. "It's a romance indeed," I said, "for these dull days, and I heartily congratulate you. It's not every young man who finds, on reaching the marrying age, a wife kept in
