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208, and attentively musing over the passage, he began to feel reassured.

Though but little acquainted with the law as regarding cases to be brought under the cognizance of the court of spiritual jurisdiction, yet he conceived, from having lived with his wife after both had become of age, such a process as the one then pending must be useless, and regard a more recent case than his. "My fears have deceived me," thought he; "my nerves, in a state of irritability, magnify and readily seize upon subjects of alarm, arising, doubtless, out of my lonely and melancholy cogitations of late. I will shake it from me, and think no more of it. At all events, I can beg my friend Philimore to be on the look-out, and gain every information on the subject; and should it—but which, I think, it cannot,—regard myself, every arrangement may be made conducive towards effecting without delay a repetition of the marriage solemnity."

Impressed with this more favourable view of the subject, he turned with a look of complacency towards Robert, who, having the satisfaction of seeing peace again irradiate the brow of his beloved master, now proposed calling upon his mistress, which words reverberating with magical influence