When Deborah was about nineteen, the small-pox broke
out in Doncaster, and soon spread over the surrounding

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country, occasioning everywhere a great mortality. At
that time inoculation had very rarely been practised in
the provinces; and the prejudice against it was so strong,
that Mr. Bacon, though convinced in his own mind that the
practice was not only lawful, but advisable, refrained from
having his daughter inoculated till the disease appeared in
his own parish. He had been induced to defer it during
her childhood, partly because he was unwilling to offend the
prejudices of his parishioners, which he hoped to overcome
by persuasion and reasoning when time and opportunity
might favor; still more, because he thought it unjustifiable
to introduce such a disease into his own house, with imminent
risk of communicating it to others, which were otherwise
in no danger, in which the same preparations would
not be made, and where, consequently, the danger would be
greater. But when the malady had shown itself in the parish,
then he felt that his duty as a parent required him to
take the best apparent means for the preservation of his
child; and that as a pastor also it became him now in his
own family to set an example to his parishioners.

Deborah, who had the most perfect reliance upon her
father's judgment, and lived in entire accordance with his
will in all things, readily consented; and seemed to regard
the beneficial consequences of the experiment to others with
hope, rather than to look with apprehension to it for herself.
Mr. Bacon therefore went to Doncaster and called upon
Mr. Dove. “I do not,” said he, “ask whether you would
advise me to have my daughter inoculated; where so great
a risk is to be incurred, in the case of an only child, you
might hesitate to advise it. But if you see nothing in her
present state of health, or in her constitutional tendencies,
which would render it more than ordinarily dangerous, it is
her own wish and mine, after due consideration on my part,
that she should be committed to your care, — putting our
trust in Providence.”

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Hitherto there had been no acquaintance between Mr.
Bacon and the Doctor, farther than that they knew each
other by sight and by good report. This circumstance led
to a growing intimacy. During the course of his attendance,
the Doctor fell in friendship with the father, and the
father with him.

“Did he fall in love with his patient?”

“No, ladies.”

You have already heard that he once fell in love, and
how it happened. And you have also been informed that
he caught love once, though I have not told you how,
because it would have led me into too melancholy a tale.
In this case he neither fell in love, nor caught it, nor ran
into it, nor walked into it; nor was he overtaken in it, as a
boon companion in liquor, or a runaway in his flight. Yet
there was love between the parties at last, and it was love for
love, to the heart's content of both. How this came to pass
will be related at the proper time and in the proper place.

For here let me set before the judicious reader certain
pertinent remarks by the pious and well-known author of a
popular treatise upon the Right Use of Reason, — a treatise
which has been much read to little purpose. That author
observes, that “those writers and speakers whose chief
business is to amuse or delight, to allure, terrify, or persuade
mankind, do not confine themselves to any natural order, but
in a cryptical or hidden method, adapt everything to their
designed ends. Sometimes they omit those things which
might injure their design, or grow tedious to their hearers,
though they seem to have a necessary relation to the point in
hand; sometimes they add those things which have no great
reference to the subject, but are suited to allure or refresh
the mind and the ear. They dilate sometimes, and flourish
long upon little incidents, and they skip over, and but
lightly touch the dryer part of the theme. They omit things
essential which are not beautiful; they insert little needless

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circumstances, and beautiful digressions: they invert times
and actions, in order to place everything in the most affecting
light; — they place the first things last, and the last
things first with wondrous art; and yet so manage it as to
conceal their artifice, and lead the senses and passions of
their hearers into a pleasing and powerful captivity.”