The next day, being Sunday, everybody went to meeting, except the Doctor, who was obliged to ride away upon his round of visits. Accordingly, Mr. Talcott walked twice to and fro across the green, with Miss Amelia tripping demurely by his side, and served as the target for a thousand eyeshots as he stood up at the head of the Doctor's pew during the long prayers. In the evening, after supper, the Doctor put off his grave Sabbath face and invited his young guest to walk over to the store, which stood in the corner of the yard, a little distance off. Presently, Miss Amelia, peeping from behind her bedroom window-curtain, beheld them sitting together upon the broad back-stoop of the store, talking and smoking in a most amicable manner, the fragrant incense of their cigars being wafted across the intervening space, which was quite too wide, however, to enable her to hear the words of their earnest conversation. But that night, as she and her lover sat together alone in the front parlor, after the family had gone to bed, he told her that her father had consented to his courtship. But if I am so circumstantial in relating these events, which are merely introductory to my story, I shall have neither time nor space left for the story itself. So I will hasten to say, that the upshot of Mr. Edward Talcott's frequent visits, as might have been expected, was a very splendid wedding, which took place in the front parlor of the Bugbee mansion, one evening during the winter after Amelia came nineteen, the bridegroom being then twenty-three, and just admitted to practice as an attorney-at-law. In pursuance of a condition which Mrs. Bugbee had proposed, in order to avoid the pangs of a separation from her child, the young couple remained members of the Doctor's household; and Mr. Talcott, who, through the influence of his wife's father, had been taken into partnership with a well-established attorney, commenced the practice of law at the Hillsdale bar. His partner, Squire Bramhall, had for many years been clerk of the courts, and was a sage and prudent counsellor, noted for the careful preparation bestowed upon his causes before they came to trial. But, in spite of his learning and industrious painstaking, he used to cut a poor figure at the bar; for being, though a lawyer, an exceedingly modest and bashful man, he failed to acquire the habit of addressing either court or jury with ease, fluency, or force. On the other hand, Squire Talcott, as he soon came to be called, was a young man of fine appearance and good address, in no wise troubled with an undue degree of doubt touching the excellence of his own abilities. His first argument before a jury was a showy and successful effort in behalf of a person for whom the sympathies of the public were already warmly enlisted. By this, of course, he won considerable applause. His subsequent attempts sustained the popular expectation. He began to acquire distinction as a fluent, persuasive, and even eloquent speaker.