“But as you are very wise, you shall be my Cousin Charles, and nothing else—and I would not exchange you for a pet porcupine. Don’t you see how I prize you? So don’t think of getting married—I should quarrel with your wife, to see which should love you best; and that would be very inconvenient for us all.” Christmas was a merry time at Charles Evans’s. The man of deeds and documents always relaxed and came out of the world of business, or, as he said, “allowed the world to mind its own business” at Christmas and New Year. But something very serious happened to Mr. Evans from this year’s Christmas merry-making. A pretty girl needed some one to see her home, and glowing and perspiring from the last game at “Blind Man’s Buff,” Mr. Evans attended her on a bitter night, which made him run home as rapidly as possible, with chattering teeth, and a chill that seemed to go quite to his heart. Next morning he awoke with a quaking headache and pains through all his bones, and great heat and cold chills, and all the concomitants of a bad fever about him. Thanks to the exhaustion of unremitting and most unreasonable labor, such as a great many men perform who do the head-work for the headless multitude, and thanks also to the lancet of a certain doctor, who held to letting the bad blood out of a man, and poisoning what remained to purify it, Mr. Evans became dangerously sick. What an invaluable treasure was Fanny now. Her foot was the lightest—her hand was the softest and coolest—her eyes never closed in slumber, unless she left the best of watchers in her place—and she threw quantities of physic to the dogs, or some equally prudent place, and she nourished the patient carefully when he began to get well; and at last, in spite of all the evils in the patient, and out of him, doctors and drugs included, she saw Mr. Evans convalescent. At length he came down stairs, and when he thought how long Fanny had left her piano locked, and not even listened to her canary, he asked her for a song. It was in very kindness to her, and in accordance with his benevolent character—for he thought that he disliked music, and it is probable that he had the good taste to dislike the heathen discord that had been christened music, where he had happened to be the victim. The Battle of Prague, thumped with indenting emphasis on a piano sadly out of tune, had given Mr. Evans his ideas of melody; and it is small wonder that he had as great dislike for music as prudent regard for his ears. It was a great surprise to Mr. Evans when Fanny’s melodious voice fell on his ear, appropriately accompanied by the instrument, which was one of the softest and sweetest in the world. He had expected the Battle of Prague, and it seemed to him, so great was the contrast, like humming-birds amid the flowers.