As for comin' and speakin' up for Coulson, why he'll be married to some one else afore t' year's out, for all he thinks he's so set upon Hester now.

Go thy ways, and leave me to my Scripture, and come no more on Sabbath days wi' thy vain babbling.' So Philip returned from his mission rather crestfallen, but quite as far as ever from 'seeing through a glass window.' Before the year was out, Alice's prophecy was fulfilled.

Coulson, who found the position of a rejected lover in the same house with the girl who had refused him, too uncomfortable to be endured, as soon as he was convinced that his object was decidedly out of his reach, turned his attention to some one else.

He did not love his new sweetheart as he had done Hester: there was more of reason and less of fancy in his attachment.

But it ended successfully; and before the first snow fell, Philip was best man at his partner's wedding..