His Wife, though somewhat languid, and of indolent humor, was a graceful, pious-minded, honorable and affectionate woman; she could not much support him in the ever-shifting struggles of his life, but she faithfully attended him in them, and loyally marched by his side through the changes and nomadic pilgrimings, of which many were appointed him in his short course.
Unhappily a few weeks after his marriage, and before any household was yet set up, he fell dangerously ill; worse in health than he had ever yet been: so many agitations crowded into the last few months had been too much for him.

He fell into dangerous pulmonary illness, sank ever deeper; lay for many weeks in his Father's house utterly prostrate, his young Wife and his Mother watching over him; friends, sparingly admitted, long despairing of his life.

All prospects in this world were now apparently shut upon him.
After a while, came hope again, and kindlier symptoms: but the doctors intimated that there lay consumption in the question, and that perfect recovery was not to be looked for.

For weeks he had been confined to bed; it was several months before he could leave his sick-room, where the visits of a few friends had much cheered him.

And now when delivered, readmitted to the air of day again,--weak as he was, and with such a liability still lurking in him,--what his young partner and he were to do, or whitherward to turn for a good course of life, was by no means too apparent.
One of his Mother Mrs.Edward Sterling's Uncles, a Coningham from Derry, had, in the course of his industrious and adventurous life, realized large property in the West Indies,--a valuable Sugar-estate, with its equipments, in the Island of St.Vincent;--from which Mrs.Sterling and her family were now, and had been for some years before her Uncle's decease, deriving important benefits.