"To do what, sir?" thundered the old doctor in a towering passion. "Are you not satisfied with trying to take from me my practice, but you must ask me for my child? I tell you, sir, nothing on earth would make me consent to your marriage with my daughter."
"But, sir," said Edward Radstock, turning to Maria, "I have your daughter's permission to make this request. I told her of my intentions last night, and she authorized me to say that she approved of them."
"Maria," exclaimed the father, almost choking with rage, "is this true?"
"My dear papa, I am in no hurry to get married, but if I did, I must say, that I should never think of marrying any one but Edward Radstock. I will not get married against your will, but I will never marry any one else; nothing will make me."
"Ungrateful girl," muttered Mr. Thomas Walker, and next minute he sank back in his chair in a fit of apoplexy.
"Open the window, raise the blinds," said the young man, preparing with promptitude and earnestness to take the necessary remedies, "be not alarmed. It is not a dangerous attack."
Maria quietly obeyed her lover, quite aware of the necessity of self-possession and presence of mind in a case like the present. In half an hour Mr. Walker was lying in a large, airy bedroom, and the young man had left, at the request of Maria, to attend a patient of her father's. It was late at night before Edward was able to take a moment's rest. What with his own patients, and those of his rival, he was overwhelmed with business; but at eleven o'clock he approached the bedside of the father of Maria, who, with her dear Emily now by her side, sat watching.
"He sleeps soundly," said Maria in a low tone, as Edward entered.
"Yes, and is doing well," replied Radstock. "I answer for his being up and stirring to-morrow, if he desires it."
"But it will be better for him to rest some days," said Maria.