The young wife received the poor fellow with floods of tears, and the most eager attention to his story, as indeed did our hero's sister Anne. It would seem that Betts's arrival was most opportune. In consequence of the non-arrival of the ship, which was then past due two or three months, Doctor Yardley had endeavoured to persuade his daughter that she was a widow, if indeed, as he had of late been somewhat disposed to maintain, she had ever been legally married at all. The truth was, that the medical war in Bristol had broken out afresh, in consequence of certain cases that had been transferred to that village, during one of the fever-seasons in Philadelphia. Greater cleanliness, and the free use of fresh water, appear to have now arrested the course of this formidable disease, in the northern cities of America; but, in that day, it was of very frequent occurrence. Theories prevailed among the doctors concerning it, which were bitterly antagonistical to each other; and Doctor Woolston headed one party in Bucks, while Doctor Yardley headed another. Which was right, or whether either was right, is more than we shall pretend to say, though we think it probable that both were wrong. Anne Woolston had been married to a young physician but a short time, when this new outbreak concerning yellow fever occurred. Her husband, whose name was Heaton, unfortunately took the side of this grave question that was opposed to his father-in-law, for a reason no better than that he believed in the truth of the opposing theory, and this occasioned another breach. Doctor Yardley could not, and did not wholly agree with Doctor Heaton, because the latter was Doctor Woolston's son-in-law, and he altered his theory a little to create a respectable point of disagreement; while Doctor. Woolston could not pardon a disaffection that took place, as it might be, in the height of a war. About this time too, Mrs. Yardley died.

All these occurrences, united to the protracted absence of Mark, made Bridget and Anne extremely unhappy. To increase this unhappiness, Doctor Yardley took it into his head to dispute the legality of a marriage that had been solemnized on board a ship. This was an entirely new legal crotchet, but the federal government was then young, and jurisdictions had not been determined as clearly as has since been the case. Had it been the fortune of Doctor Yardley to live in these later times, he would not have given himself the trouble to put violent constructions on anything; but, getting a few female friends to go before the necessary judge, with tears in their eye's, anything would be granted to their requests, very much as a matter of course. Failing of this, moreover, there is always the resource of the legislature, which will usually pass a law taking away a man's wife, or his children, and sometimes his estate, if a pretty pathetic appeal can be made to it, in the way of gossip. We have certainly made great progress in this country, within the last twenty years; but whether it has been in a direction towards the summit of human perfection, or one downward towards the destruction of all principles, the next generation will probably be better able to say than this. Even the government is getting to be gossipian.

In the case of Bridget, however, public sympathy was with her, as it always will be with a pretty woman. Nevertheless, her father had great influence in Bucks county, more especially with the federalists and the anti-depletionists, and it was in his power to give his daughter great uneasiness, if not absolutely to divorce her. So violent did he become, that he actually caused proceedings to be commenced in Bridget's name, to effect a legal separation, taking the grounds that the marriage had never been consummated, that the ceremony had occurred on board a ship, that the wife was of tender years, and lastly, that she was an heiress. Some persons thought the Doctor's proceedings were instigated by the circumstance that another relative had just died, and left Bridget five thousand dollars, which were to be paid to her the day she was eighteen, the period of a female's reaching her majority, according to popular notions. The possession of this money, which Bridget received and, placed in the hands of a friend in town, almost made her father frantic for the divorce, or a decree against the marriage, he contending there was no marriage, and that a divorce was unnecessary. The young wife had not abandoned the hope of seeing her husband return, all this time, although uneasiness concerning the fate of the ship, was extending from her owners into the families of those who had sailed in her. She wished to meet Mark with a sum of money that would enable him, at once, to commence life respectably, and place him above the necessity of following the seas.

Betts reached Bristol the very day that a decision was made, on a preliminary point, in the case of Yardley versus Woolson, that greatly encouraged the father in his hopes of final success, and as greatly terrified his daughter. It was, in fact, a mere question of practice, and had no real connection with the merits of the matter at issue; but it frightened Bridget and her friend Anna enormously. In point of fact, there was not the smallest danger of the marriage being declared void, should any one oppose the decision; but this was more than any one of the parties then knew, and Doctor Yardley seemed so much in earnest, that Bridget and Anne got into the most serious state of alarm on the subject. To increase their distress, a suitor for the hand of the former appeared in the person of a student of medicine, of very fair expectations and who supported every one of Doctor Yardley's theories, in all their niceties and distinctions; and what is more, would have supported them, had they been ten times as untenable as they actually were, in reason.

Had the situation of Doctor Heaton been more pleasant than it was, it is probable that the step taken by himself, his wife, and Bridget, would never have been thought of. But it was highly unpleasant. He was poor, and dependent altogether on his practice for a support. Now, it was in Doctor Woolston's power to be of great service to the young couple, by introducing the son-in-law to his own patients, but this he could not think of doing with a depletionist; and John, as Anne affectionately styled her husband, was left to starve on his system of depletion. Such was the state of things when Bob appeared in Bristol, to announce to the young wife not only the existence but the deserted and lone condition of her husband.