"I hope in God that what you seem to fear will never happen; but even if it should, I shall never repent having married her, for I know that I am just as ready to be her nurse as to be her husband.

I am willing to take her in sickness and in health, as the Prayer-Book says.

In my home she would have such constant attention paid to her wants and comforts as she could not have at her father's, with his large family and his poverty, poor fellow! And this is reason enough, I think, for my marrying her, even if the worst should take place.

But I always have hoped for the best, as you know, father: and I mean to go on hoping for poor Lavvie, just the same as ever!" What could old Mr.Blyth, what could any man of heart and honor, oppose to such an answer as this?
Nothing.

The marriage took place; and Valentine's father tried hard, and not altogether vainly, to feel as sanguine about future results as Valentine himself.
For several months--how short the time seemed, when they looked back on it in after-years!--the happiness of the painter and his wife more than fulfilled the brightest hopes which they had formed as lovers.