clever little physician attacked in vain. "Nature, my dear sir,--nature and your native air, they must do the rest for you; the virtues of the pharmacopoeia are exhausted." So one autumn evening, as Mr. Stanfield sat poring over his book, and Georgie, her hope day by day dying away within her, was looking out over the darkening landscape, the noise of wheels was heard at the gate; a grave man in black descended from the box of a postchaise, a worn, thin, haggard face peered out of the window; and the next instant, before Mr. Stanfield at all comprehended what had happened, the carriage door was thrown open, and Georgie was hanging round the neck of the carriage occupant; and kiss, kiss, and bless, bless! and thank God! and safe once more! was all the explanation audible. Dr. Prater was quite right; nature and the patient's native air effected a complete cure. By the end of a month--such a happy month for Georgie!--Sir Charles was able to drive to Redmoor to see the men of business from London; by the end of two months he stood at the altar of the little Fishbourne church, and received his darling from the hands of her father; the ceremony being performed by the old curate, who had learned to love Georgie as his own child, and who wept plentifully as he bestowed on her his blessing. CHAPTER VI. THE GRAYS. When Laurence Alsager awoke the next morning, he did not regard life with such weariness, nor London with such detestation, as when he went to bed. He had slept splendidly, as would naturally fall to the lot of a man who for two years had been deprived of that greatest of earthly comforts--an English bed. Laurence had bounded on French spring-mattresses; had sweltered beneath German feather-lined coverlets; had cramped himself up in berths; had swung restlessly in hammocks; had stifled behind mosquito curtains; and had passed many nights with his cloak for his bed, and his saddle-bags for his pillow, with the half-naked forms of dirty Arabs dimly visible in the flickering firelight, and the howls of distant jackals ringing in his ears. He had undergone every description of bed-discomfort; and it is not to be wondered at that he lingered long in that glorious nest of cleanliness and rest provided for him at his hotel. As he lay there at his ease, thoroughly awake, but utterly averse to getting up, he began to think over all that had happened during the previous evening; and first he thought what a charming-looking woman Lady Mitford was.