“To be sure you will, my boy. Why, there you will have another hundred a-year at once added to your income, besides what you make from your literary work! In a short time you will be quite ‘an eligible person,’ I do declare!”—she said, laughing away my fit of the blues, in her bright brisk way.

“And do you think Min will wait for me?”

“Certainly, Frank. You wrong her by the very question. She’s not the girl to change, or, I’m very much mistaken in her honest, noble face. She will be constant and true, after what she has said to you, until death!”

“Oh, thank you for that assurance,”—I said.

I went home completely contented and happy.

You may wonder, perhaps, at this buoyancy of temperament, that enabled me to get over so quickly the disappointment and dejection I was suffering from at Mrs Clyde’s brusque rejection of my suit?

But, you must recollect that I was naturally sanguine, as I have previously told you; and, the memory of my unhappy defeat, although not quite forgotten, became merged into the hopeful anticipations I now had—of working for my darling, and being enabled to renew my offer, in a short time, with better chances of success.

Hang care! It killed a cat once, you know. Was it not Lord Palmerston, by the way, who once made that capital classic hit at the versatile chief of the Adullamites in Parliament during a debate on the budget, when he said—“Atra cura post equitem sedet?”

Care should not sit behind me, however; or, in front of me, either!

I wasn’t going to be a martyr to it, I promise you.

I would soon see Min again; and, in the meantime, I could wait for her and love her, in spite of all the stern mammas in creation, and notwithstanding that my tongue might be tied for awhile.

As long as I knew that she loved me in return, whom or what had I to fear?

I was, at all events, emperor of my own thoughts;—and, she was mine, there!

Chapter Four.

“Up for Exam.”

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