A very few minutes more, however, completed the present trial. Mr. Weston, always alert when business was to be done, and as incapable of procrastinating any evil that was inevitable, as of foreseeing any that was doubtful, said, “It was time to go;” and the young man, though he might and did sigh, could not but agree, to take leave.

“I shall hear about you all,” said he; “that is my chief consolation. I shall hear of everything that is going on among you. I have engaged Mrs. Weston to correspond with me. She has been so kind as to promise it. Oh! the blessing of a female correspondent, when one is really interested in the absent!⁠—she will tell me everything. In her letters I shall be at dear Highbury again.”