_The Rev. Dr. Opimian._ I am happy to see that the honours of your table are done by yourself, and not by an executor, administrator, or assign. The honours are done admirably, but the old justice on your side is wanting. I do not, however, clearly see what the _feralis cæna_ of guest and executor has to do with the dinner of two living men. _Mr. Falconer._ Ah, doctor, you should say one living man and a ghost. I am only the ghost of myself. I do the honours of my departed conviviality. _The Rev. Dr. Opimian._ I thought something was wrong; but whatever it may be, take Horace's advice--'Alleviate every ill with wine and song, the sweet consolations of deforming anxiety.'{1} _Mr. Falconer._ I do, doctor. Madeira, and the music of the Seven Sisters, are my consolations, and great ones; but they do not go down to the hidden care that gnaws at the deepest fibres of the heart, like Ratatosk at the roots of the Ash of Ygdrasil. _The Rev. Dr. Opimian._ In the Scandinavian mythology: one of the most poetical of all mythologies. I have a great respect for Odin and Thor. Their adventures have always delighted me; and the system was admirably adapted to foster the high spirit of a military people. Lucan has a fine passage on the subject.{2} 1 illia omne malum vino cantuque levato, deformis aggrimonio dulcibus alloquiis. Epod. xiii. 2 Pharsalia, 458-462. The doctor repeated the passage of Lucan with great emphasis. This was not what Mr. Falconer wanted. He had wished that the doctor should inquire into the cause of his trouble; but independently of the doctor's determination to ask no questions, and to let his young friend originate his own disclosures, the unlucky metaphor had carried the doctor into one of his old fields, and if it had not been that he awaited the confidence, which he felt sure his host would spontaneously repose in him, the Scandinavian mythology would have formed his subject for the evening. He paused, therefore, and went on quietly sipping his claret. Mr. Falconer could restrain himself no longer, and without preface or note of preparation, he communicated to the doctor all that had passed between Miss Gryll and himself, not omitting a single word of the passages of Bojardo, which were indelibly impressed on his memory. _The Rev. Dr. Opimian._ I cannot see what there is to afflict you in all this. You are in love with _Miss Gryll._ She is disposed to receive you favourably. What more would you wish in that quarter? _Mr. Falconer._ No more in that quarter, but the Seven Sisters are as sisters to me. If I had seven real sisters, the relationship would subsist, and marriage would not interfere with it; but, be a woman as amiable, as liberal, as indulgent, as confiding as she may, she could not treat the unreal as she would the real tie. _The Rev. Dr. Opimian._ I admit, it is not to be expected. Still there is one way out of the difficulty. And that is by seeing all the seven happily married.