"What!" he cried, "and are you really Jack risen from the grave? Come, let me touch you to be sure you are no ghost. "Ha! ha! Ha! ha! ha!" he laughed, hysterically. "What! Jack, my boy, I see it all. Ha! ha! ha! ha!" and he wept upon my shoulder till I thought he'd go off in a fit. "Hush! father," I cried, "and calm yourself. My resurrection must be a secret between us two, for motives of policy. Do you understand?" "Why a secret?" he asked. "Never mind now; that is part of my plan. If you tell a single soul you'll spoil all, and I am a ruined man," I said. "I understand nothing of all this, Jack," said my father, "but you may count upon my secrecy; but I say, Jack, how long must I keep the secret, for I am burning to tell everyone in the village?" "For Heaven's sake, hold your tongue," said I, "until I give you permission to let it out, or I am ruined for life." "Well, well, Jack, mum's the word," said my father. I then resumed my disguise and prepared to leave the inn. "Why, what the devil are you going to be up to now?" "Mum's the word," said I. "You shall know all when I return. Good-bye, father," and off I started. I busied myself a good deal about getting everything in order for the wedding, and returned to H----, where without further bother I was married at the village church. Fearful that if I threw off my disguise before the wedding that something or other, I could not tell what or from what quarter, would mar all and prevent the marriage just at the last moment, after having been so successful up to this time, this feeling, or presentiment of harm, vague as it was, induced me to keep on my disguise all through the ceremony, but when it came to signing my name in the register, I signed my real name--"John Hearty." This created some sensation. The aunt wanted me to explain myself. However, we hurried back to the aunt's house, where we at once threw off my disguise, explained all, and craved pardon for the deception I had practised upon her. At first the aunt seemed a little cold. She was hurt at the deception being carried on so long. There was no necessity for such tricks, she said, if she had been told all at the beginning; nothing would have been known to anyone else. "Do you think I would trust a woman's tongue?" I said. "Come, now, aunt," I said, "though I am not a doctor, I did you quite as much good as a court physician could have done you. Yes, although the medicine was only liquorice water mixed up with other harmless filth." "In that, too, I've been imposed upon, then," murmured the aunt. "Nevertheless, I cured you," retorted I; "you yourself admitted it, and what is more, I took no fee." Soon, however, Molly's aunt recovered her good humour, and all passed off with a hearty laugh.