On Friday evening Mr. Carey returned before the rest of his party from a strawberry feast, to tell his wife that their dear girl had shown him by a look, that she must now decide on her lot for life. Ellison had certainly spoken. Joanna must decide for herself. If she was satisfied to have the greatest blessings that a woman could have--high moral and spiritual excellence in a man who loved her--and could, for these, make light of the daily drawbacks of his oddities, it was not for any one else to object. Mr. Carey could not say that his own temper would bear with so eccentric a companion; but perhaps he was narrow: perhaps his wife's nice household ways for twenty-five years had spoiled him. Joanna knew what she was undertaking. She knew that it was as much as the clerk and the deacons could do, to get the pastor into the pulpit in proper time every Sunday, and that this would be her business now. She knew that he seldom remembered to shave, and how he had burned his marble chimney-piece black; and--Well; perhaps these were trifles. Perhaps it was a fault not to regard them as such. If a father was fortunate enough to have a man of eminent single-mindedness for his son-in-law, and genius to boot, he ought not, perhaps, to require common sense also; but it had always been Mr. Carey's belief that good sense was the greatest part of genius. By Sunday evening Mr. Carey was little disposed to desire any thing more in his intended son-in-law than had appeared that day. Joanna had engaged herself to him on Saturday evening. On Sunday morning there was something in the tone of his pathetic voice so unusual, in the very first verses of the Psalm, that many hearers looked up; and then they saw something very unusual in his countenance. He so preached, that a stranger inquired earnestly who this Mr. Ellison was, and whence he came; and his admirers in the congregation said he was inspired. "Joanna behaved very well, did not she?" whispered Mrs. Carey to her husband, as they were returning from chapel. "Very well, indeed. And it was extremely fine, his preaching to-day. Extremely fine!" And this particular day, the father feared as little for Joanna as Joanna for herself. There was no reason for delay about the marriage. Mr. Ellison had three hundred pounds a year from his office, and was never likely to have any more. The interest of Joanna's portion--one thousand pounds--was hers whenever she married. She was four-and-twenty, and Mr. Ellison was five years older. They were no children; there was no reason for delay; so every body knew of the engagement immediately, and the preparations went on diligently.