"Well, then, my dear Mr Pringle, I have to speak to you about Laura. I am her mother, and it seems strange in me to speak to you; but I look upon you as a son, and I wish I could see things arranged between you. The darling girl is getting quite thin and pale, and this prolonged suspense is more than she can bear. And I must ask you in the most-- that is--my dear Mr Pringle, I think your feelings are interested, and--" "Precisely so, Lady Inskip; just what I wanted to say, only I could not say it. Would Laura, eh?--your daughter, do you think, eh?" and he looked nervously into the campaigner's face. "I think she will consent. I am so glad, my dear young friend; I will speak to her for you, and it will be all arranged, if you will come in again this evening. I have long wished to see my angel Laura married to a Christian gentleman, and since I have known you, you have fulfilled everything which I could have hoped for her to find in a husband"--that he had, with regard to position and competency, besides being easily managed--"and, my dear Mr Pringle, I will tell Laura at once; and this is the happiest moment in my life!" "Certainly, Lady Inskip, certainly!" stammered the young incumbent, as he shook hands joyfully with his future mother-in-law; and in the evening he came round again to Laburnum Cottage. Laura received him with a faint blush and a timid pressure of his hand, so it was an understood thing that they were regularly engaged. After it was all settled, Pringle lost a good deal of his prior bashfulness; and both Carry and young Sir Mortimer regarded him as a very jolly sort of brother-in-law to have. The wedding was fixed for an early date in the following year, after a probationary engagement of some three months. _Eureka_! The campaigner had carried the fortress after a series of admirable military tactics. Volume 2, Chapter VIII. SUSAN. Change of scene is one of the most potent panaceas for mental ills; and change of scene had in a few week effected Susan's complete recovery. She had been under Markworth's care at The Poplars in those early days of August, an entirely reasoning being, but she had lacked animation and life; she had been like Gibson's Venus, before the flesh tints were put on the statue; but she was now a bright, living, thinking girl, with hopes and pleasures and aspirations which she had hitherto undreamt of. In her cheerful little apartments in the Rue Montmartre she unfolded herself like a chrysalis from the grub, and bustled about and took an interest in everything around her which Doctor Jolly would have wondered at.