Many were the stolen visits to the City which Binks made to see his young betrothed. His suit prospered,--Julia was everything he could wish; but as fathers _will_ be in the way on such occasions,--how can they be so hard-hearted?--and as something like his consent was deemed necessary, Binks, through the medium of a friend, had the old man's sentiments sounded on the subject; and a decided refusal, couched in no very flattering terms, was the result. "I cannot disguise from you," said Julia one evening to Binks, after he had communicated to her the disastrous intelligence, "that there is much to encounter in my father's disposition. He is old and wealthy, with only myself to inherit it; and--would you believe it?--he has the greatest aversion to a man of rank, and thinks superior manners and accomplishments only a cover to heartlessness and deceit; and, what is strange, he has repeatedly said he will never consent to my union with anybody as long as he is in anything like health,--in short, till he is no longer able to protect me himself." "That is strange indeed!" said Binks, as he hung with the tenderest rapture on the confiding frankness and simplicity of his fair companion; "your father's objections are no less serious than strange." "Can nothing," inquired Julia despondingly, "be done to get over them?" Had Echo been present, she would have said, "Get over them." "There can, there can," said Binks with transport; "I have it. So long as your father is in good health, he will never give his consent to your marriage. Now he is old: and suppose he can be persuaded that he _looks_ ill,--such things, you know, are done,--and contrive that he shall keep his bed for a few days; and then,--and then, my dear girl, let the affair be again pressed upon him." And Binks met the ingenuous blush and smile of his young betrothed as she acquiesced with an embrace, in which was blended more heartfelt rapture than ever he experienced in the dissipated round of tumultuous and exciting pleasures. "The times are certainly very bad, Julia," said old Deering to his daughter, as they were at breakfast one morning together; "I never recollect them so bad;" and he helped himself to a large slice of ham. "They may be bad, pa," said the daughter; "but you mustn't take it so much to heart. Everybody notices how ill you look since the firm of Dobody and Sons went." The old man suspended a piece of ham, that he had impaled on a fork, midway between his mouth and plate; and, planting his right hand on his thigh, he looked earnestly at the girl. "What connexion, hussey, has that failure with my looks or my books either? As long as I can keep both free from blotches, I don't care a fig for what the world says. But I do believe, girl, that I am not as well as either of us could wish,--I am fallen off in my appetite. I _could_ finish my ham,--three slices,--and a few eggs; but I am a little changed, Julia. Hussey, you've a sharp eye; and to notice it!"