My own health, he assured me, was considered as very precarious, and added, that Tyrrel, who was in the same house, was in the utmost perturbation on my account.

The very mention of his name brought on a crisis in which I brought up much blood; and it is singular that the physician who attended me--a grave gentleman, with a wig--considered that this was of service to me.

I know it frightened me heartily, and prepared me for a visit from Master Frank, which I endured with a tameness he would not have experienced, had the usual current of blood flowed in my veins.

But sickness and the lancet make one very tolerant of sermonizing .-- At last, in consideration of being relieved from his accursed presence, and the sound of his infernally calm voice, I slowly and reluctantly acquiesced in an arrangement, by which he proposed that we should for ever bid adieu to each other, and to Clara Mowbray.

I would have hesitated at this last stipulation.