"No buts, Middleton," interrupted his friend. "Will you, or will you not?"
"Why, then, if you are resolved, Harry, on this desperate, and, I must call it, singularly absurd step, I will," rejoined Middleton. "But what will your father say to it?"
"Why, from him, certainly, my marriage must, far a time, at any rate, be concealed; but of this more afterwards. In the meantime, will you go to Helen, and tell her that an old acquaintance desires to see her; and conduct her hither?"
Middleton readily undertook the mission, and departed to execute it. In a minute afterwards he returned, leading in Helen by the hand. On seeing Wellwood, she uttered a piercing shriek, and fainted in the arms of Middleton, her little boy clinging to her in all the terror of childish affright. Wellwood rushed to her assistance, and, in the tenderest and most soothing language he could command, endeavoured to restore her to consciousness. This of itself gradually returned, and a scene followed which we will not attempt to describe. Wellwood, pressing Helen to his bosom, told the bewildered but delighted girl that it was his intention to repair the injury he had done her, by offering her his hand. He next flew to his boy, took him up in his arms, bathed him with his tears, and bestowed upon him, while he caressed him, every tender epithet he could think of.
Our story is now coming naturally to a close; and we will not prolong it by any unnecessary or extraneous details. In three days after this, Helen—having been previously provided with everything suitable to the rank in life to which she was thus suddenly and most unexpectedly promoted from the lowest depths of wretchedness and destitution—became the wife of Henry Edington, Esq. of Wellwood. In three days more, Mr Edington received intelligence of his father's sudden demise, which rendered it necessary that he should proceed instantly to Wellwood. In this journey his wife and child accompanied him; and the next appearance of Helen Gardenstone in her native village was in a splendid carriage, as the lady of Wellwood, in which character she subsequently acquired an extensive reputation for benevolence, and for the practice of every social virtue. Helen, in short, became an exemplary wife, and conferred on her husband, who continued to regard her with unabated affection till the day of his death, all the happiness of which the marriage state is capable.
THE SURGEON'S TALES.
THE CASE OF EVIDENCE.
The following narrative was given to me by the executors of Miss Ballingal, whom I attended for a short time previous to her death:—