The clerk shook his head emphatically. He never failed any one. "That's right. Be away from here at seven, and you'll be in ample time for the train, walking gently. Don't speak of this to your wife, Trim: or to any one else." "As good set the church-bell clapping as tell her, sir," replied the clerk, confidentially. "You need not be afraid of me, Mr. Frank. I know what women's tongues are: they don't often get any encouragement from me." And away went Frank Raynor, over the stile and the mounds again, calling back a good-evening to Mrs. Trim; who was just then putting up her goat for the night. Scheming begets scheming. As Frank found. Open and straightforward though he was by nature and conduct, he had to scheme now. He wanted the marriage kept absolutely secret at present from every one: excepting of course from the clergyman who must of necessity take part in it. For this reason he was sending Clerk Trim out of the way, to inquire after some imaginary letters. Another little circumstance happened in his favour. Eight o'clock was the breakfast-hour at Dr. Raynor's. It was clear that if Frank presented himself to time at the breakfast-table, he could then not be standing before the altar rails in the church. Of course he must absent himself from breakfast, and invent some excuse for doing so. But this was done for him. Upon quitting the clerk's and hastening to his patients, he found one of them so much worse that it would be essential to see him at the earliest possible hour in the morning. And this he said later to the doctor. When his place was found vacant at breakfast, it would be concluded by his uncle and Edina that he was detained by the exigencies of the sick man. But, if Fortune was showing herself thus kind to him in some respects, Fate was preparing to be less so. Upon how apparently accidental and even absurd a trifle great events often turn. Or, rather, to what great events, affecting life and happiness, one insignificant incident will lead! The world needs not to be told this. CHAPTER XII. THE WEDDING. "Papa, will you come to breakfast? Oh dear! what is the matter?" Edina might well ask. She had opened the door of the small consulting-room as the clock was chiming eight--the knell of Frank Raynor's bachelorhood--to tell her father that the meal was waiting, when she saw not only the hearth and the hearthrug, but the doctor himself enveloped in a cloud of soot, and looking as black as Erebus. "I said yesterday the chimney wanted sweeping, Edina." "Yes, papa, and it was going to be done next week. Have you been burning more paper in the chimney?" "Only just a letter: but the wind carried it up. Well, this is a pretty pickle!" "The room shall be done to-day, papa. It will be all right and ready for you again by night."