"To tell you the truth, Mrs. Compton, I think the coming home to you twice a-year, for the holidays, could be no advantage to her education, and the expense of such repeated journeyings would be very inconvenient to me. I have therefore arranged with the persons who are to take charge of her that she is to pass the vacations with them. I shall, however, make a point of seeing her myself more than once in the course of the time, and will undertake that she shall come to Silverton twice during these five years, for a few days each time.... And now, I think, there is no more to say; so come, my little girl, for it is not right to keep the driver and the horses any longer waiting." The adieux between the parties were now hastily exchanged, little Agnes mounted the post-chaise, aunt Betsy followed, and they drove off, though in what direction they were to go, after leaving the Silverton turnpike, no one had ever thought of inquiring. Poor Mrs. Compton stood for some moments silently gazing after the post-chaise, and on re-entering her drawing-room, felt a sensation that greatly resembled desolation from the unwonted stillness that reigned there. She was instantly cheered, however, by recollecting the very agreeable visit she was going to pay; and only pausing to put on her new wedding bonnet and shawl, set off for Mr. Barnaby's, saying to the maid, whom she passed as she descended, "I should like, Sally, to have seen what sort of things she has got for the poor child." "If they was as neat and as nice as the little trunk as was strapped on in the front, and that's where they was packed, no doubt,... there wouldn't be no need to complain of them," was the reply. And now, leaving Agnes to aunt Betsy and her fate, I must return to the duty I have assigned myself, and follow the fortunes of Mrs. Barnaby. CHAPTER VI. WEDDED HAPPINESS.--DEATH OF MRS. COMPTON.--THE EX-CURATE BROUGHT INTO A PEACEFUL HARBOUR.--HE FALLS SICK, AND HIS SISTER AND GRANDCHILD ARE SUMMONED. The first five or six months of Mrs. Barnaby's married life were so happy as not only to make her forget all her former disappointments, but almost to persuade her that it was very nearly as good a thing to marry a middle-aged country apothecary, with a good house and a good income, as a beautiful young officer with neither. Since her adventure with Mr. Smith, the draper, milliner, mercer, and haberdasher of Silverton _par excellence_, Mrs. Barnaby's genius for making bargains had been sadly damped; not but that she had in some degree saved her credit with that important and much-provoked personage by condescending to wear the willow before his eyes; she even went so far as to say to him, with a twinkling of lids that passed for having tears in her own,--