Page:Garman and Worse.djvu/278

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276
Garman and Worse.

Uncle Richard was utterly confounded when he heard Madeleine was going to marry a clergyman, and he had a kind of dim feeling that he would have done better to have kept her under the observation of the big telescope. But the old gentleman, who had never been very strong-minded, had become still more feeble in his sorrow, and now that he could no longer go to Christian Frederick for advice, he gave way in everything.

As for Madeleine herself, the exhaustion which followed her illness had produced a feeling of indifference; and now that the important step had once been taken, she allowed herself to be led without offering any opposition, and did not find it disagreeable, when the pastor took upon himself to think and act for her in everything. But when it came to saying good-bye to her father she gave way, and was carried senseless to the carriage.

Martens soon found that if he wished to educate Madeleine to be a pattern wife after his own heart, he must get her away from Sandsgaard. With the same object in view, he sought, and standing as well as he did with those in authority, soon obtained, a living at some distance in the country; and, a year after his betrothal, he celebrated his marriage at his mother's house.

"After his ride along the shore, George Delphin suffered from a dangerous attack of inflammation of the lungs. His illness lasted so long that a substitute had to be provided for the time in the magistrate's office; and as soon as he recovered sufficiently to