But time passed, bringing the usual ameliorations to the miserable. Effie got so far better in health that she became able to resume, in a languid way, her former duties, with the exception of those of “the gentle clerk”--for of these she had had enough; even the very look of a bank-draft brought a shudder over her; nor would she have entered the Bank of Scotland again, even with a good cheque for a thousand pounds to have been all her own. Meanwhile the patient George had plied a suit which he could only express by his eyes, or the attentions of one who worships; but he never alluded, even in their conversations, to the old sacrifice. The mother too, and not less the father, saw the advantages that might result as well to the health of her mind as that of her body. They had waited--a vain waiting--for the wearing out of the traces of the obdurate image: and when they thought they might take placidity as the sign of what they waited for, they first hinted, and then expressed in plain terms, the wishes of their hearts. For a time all their efforts were fruitless; but John Carr, getting old and weak, wished to be succeeded in his business by George; and the wife, when she became a widow, would require to be maintained,--reasons which had more weight with Effie than any others, excepting always the act of George’s self-immolation at the shrine in which his fancy had placed her. The importunities at length wore out her resistings, without effacing the lines of the old and still endeared image; and she gave a cold, we may say reluctant, consent. The bride’s “ay” was a sigh, the rapture a tear of sadness. But George was pleased even with this: Effie, the long-cherished Effie, was at length his.