“Ay! ay! the whole town knows it, and from who else but him, I wonder? But you needn't to talk, doctor, on the subject. My mind's made up. Edward Clifford, while I have breath to say 'No,' and a hand to turn the lock of the door against him, shall never again darken these doors!” The physician was a man of too much experience to waste labor upon a case so decidedly hopeless. He knew that no art within his compass could cure so thorough a case of heart-blindness, and he gave her up; but he did not give up Julia. He whispered words of consolation into her ears, which, though vague, were yet far more useful than physic. “Cheer up, my daughter; be of good heart and faith. I AM SURE that there will be some remedy provided for you, before long, which will do you good. I have given the letter to your aunt, and she promises to do as you wish.” It may be said, en passant, that the billet sent to me had been covered in another to my female friend and Julia's relative; and that the doctor, though not unconscious of the agency of this lady between us, was yet guilty of no violation of the faith which is always implied between the family and the physician. He might SUSPECT, but he did not KNOW; and whatever might have been his suspicions, he certainly did not have the most distant idea of that concession which Julia had made, and of the course of conduct for which her mother's persecutions had now prepared her mind. Mr. Perkins, though deprived of his lien upon Mrs. Clifford, by reason of his claim, did not in the least forego his intentions. His complaints and threatenings necessarily ceased--his tone was something lowered; but he possessed a hold upon this silly woman's prejudices which was far superior to any which he might before have had upon her fears. His hostility to me was grateful to the hate which she also entertained, and which seemed to be more thoroughly infixed in her after her downfall--which, as it has been seen, she ascribed to me; chiefly because of my predictions that such would be the case. In due proportion to her hate for me, was her desire to baffle my wishes, even though it might be at the expense of her own daughter's life. But a vain mother has no affections--none, at least, worthy of the name, and none which she is not prepared to discard at the first requisition of her dearer self. Her hate of me was so extreme as to render her blind to everything besides--her daughter's sickness, the counsel of the physician, the otherwise obvious vulgarity and meanness of Perkins, and that gross injustice which I had suffered at her hands from the beginning, and which, to many minds, might have amply justified in me the hostile feelings which she laid to my charge. In this blindness she precipitated events, and by her cruelty justified extremities in self-defence. The moment that Julia exhibited some slight improvement, she was summoned to an interview with Perkins, and in this interview her mother solemnly