on the surgeon's arm confidentially,--"Squills," said he, "I myself
should be glad to know how I came to be married."

Mr. Squills was a jovial, good-hearted man,--stout, fat, and with fine
teeth, that made his laugh pleasant to look at as well as to hear. Mr.
Squills, moreover, was a bit of a philosopher in his way,--studied human
nature in curing its diseases; and was accustomed to say that Mr. Caxton
was a better book in himself than all he had in his library. Mr.
Squills laughed, and rubbed his hands.

My father resumed thoughtfully, and in the tone of one who moralizes:--

"There are three great events in life, sir,--birth, marriage, and death.
None know how they are born, few know how they die; but I suspect that
many can account for the intermediate phenomenon--I cannot."

"It was not for money, it must have been for love," observed Mr.
Squills; "and your young wife is as pretty as she is good."

"Ha!" said my father, "I remember."

"Do you, sir?" exclaimed Squills, highly amused. "How was it?"

My father, as was often the case with him, protracted his reply, and
then seemed rather to commune with himself than to answer Mr. Squills.

"The kindest, the best of men," he murmured,--"Abyssus Eruditionis. And
to think that he bestowed on me the only fortune he had to leave,
instead of to his own flesh and blood, Jack and Kitty,--all, at least,
that I could grasp, deficiente manu, of his Latin, his Greek, his