'And so,' said the doctor, 'the young gentleman, whose name is Algernon, is the Proslambanomenos, or key-note, and makes up the octave. His parents must have designed it as a foretelling that he and his seven foster-sisters were to live in harmony all their lives. But how did you become acquainted?'
'Why,' said the other, 'I take a great many things to the house from our farm, and it's generally she that takes them in.'
'I know the house well,' said the doctor, 'and the master, and the maids. Perhaps he may marry, and they may follow the example. Live in hope. Tell me your name.'
'Hedgerow,' said the other; 'Harry Hedgerow. And if you know her, ain't she a beauty?'
'Why, yes,' said the doctor; 'they are all good-looking.'
'And she won't have me,' cried the other, but with a more subdued expression. The doctor had consoled him, and given him a ray of hope. And they went on their several ways.
The doctor resumed his soliloquy.
'Here is the semblance of something towards a solution of the difficulty. If one of the damsels should marry, it would break the combination. One will not by herself. But what if seven apple-faced Hedgerows should propose simultaneously, seven notes in the key of A minor, an octave below? Stranger things have happened. I have read of six brothers who had the civility to break their necks in succession, that the seventh, who was the hero of the story, might inherit an estate. But, again and again, why should I trouble myself with matchmaking? I had better leave things to take their own course.'
Still in his interior speculum the doctor could not help seeing a dim reflection of himself pronouncing the nuptial benediction on his two young friends.