“My good fellow, I can hardly tell you what happened after this; I have a confused recollection of having looked inquiringly into Rachel’s face, read whole chapters of love in it; then threw my arms round her waist, pressed her fondly to my bosom, and whilst I untied her bonnet strings, and removed the obtrusive covering from her head, said to her, ‘We sailors have all been sworn at Highgate—all sworn never to kiss the maid when we can kiss the mistress—unless we like the maid better than the mistress, and heaven knows how much I do!’
“After the lapse of two or three weeks, and very delightful weeks they were, too—Rachel Earnshaw became Rachel Bloxham, and I the happiest husband in the world. I have got the very best of little wives, and never, I assure you, for one moment, though we have little enough to live upon, and I cannot bear these long separations, have I deplored the loss of Miss Harper and her fifteen thousand pounds, or regretted that I availed myself of the saving clause, when I proved that I had been Sworn at Highgate.”
“WHATEVER HE DOETH SHALL PROSPER.”
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BY MRS. MARY ARTHUR.
———
I read the records of passing life,
With a careful, earnest eye—
And smiled or wept, as my pulses leapt,