affected her so much, that she became almost blind with weeping, and began to fade away like a blighted flower. Sorrow was busy at her heart—for three whole days she refused to eat, or to moisten her feverish lips with a drop of water. No slumber visited her eyes: in short, she fell very sick, and alarmed her mother by requesting to see a priest, in order to make her last confession, and receive the sacrament. Her fond mother thus beheld the last prop of all her hopes about to be snatched away; she became apprehensive lest she should lose her only daughter, and began to think that it would perhaps be more prudent to sacrifice the most flattering prospect, in preference to following her dear girl to an untimely grave. She wisely therefore resigned her own views to gratify those of her daughter. Yet it was not without many a severe pang that she did this; and submitted, as a good mother ought, to the superior authority of her pretty child, without even reproaching her. When the willing widower made his appearance on the appointed day, trusting that his heavenly mediator St. Christopher had been during the past week busily engaged in his favour, he was quite astounded on meeting with a refusal, though delivered with so much reluctance and politeness, that to the King of the Hops it tasted very like wormwood sweetened with sugar. Soon, however, he became more
