of her arrival in the neighborhood—­for, be it remembered, I had not yet seen her, except about three years previous, as above mentioned.  In a few days we had an interview, and, although I had seen her before, she did not look as my imagination had pictured her.  I knew she was over-size, but she now appeared a fair match for Falstaff.  I knew she was called an “old maid,” and I felt no doubt of the truth of at least half of the appellation, but now, when I beheld her, I could not for my life avoid thinking of my mother; and this, not from withered features,—­for her skin was too full of fat to permit of its contracting into wrinkles,—­but from her want of teeth, weather-beaten appearance in general, and from a kind of notion that ran in my head that nothing could have commenced at the size of infancy and reached her present bulk in less than thirty-five or forty years; and in short, I was not at all pleased with her.  But what could I do?  I had told her sister that I would take her for better or for worse, and I made a point of honor and conscience in all things to stick to my word especially if others had been induced to act on it which in this case I had no doubt they had, for I was now fairly convinced that no other man on earth would have her, and hence the conclusion that they were bent on holding me to my bargain.

“Well,” thought I, “I have said it, and, be the consequences what they may, it shall not be my fault if I fail to do it.”  At once I determined to consider her my wife; and, this done, all my powers of discovery were put to work in search of perfections in her which might be fairly set off against her defects.  I tried to imagine her handsome, which, but for her unfortunate corpulency, was actually true.  Exclusive of this no woman that I have ever seen has a finer face.  I also tried to convince myself that the mind was much more to be valued than the person; and in this she was not inferior, as I could discover, to any with whom I had been acquainted.

Shortly after this, without coming to any positive understanding with her, I set out for Vandalia, when and where you first saw me.  During my stay there I had letters from her which did not change my opinion of either her intellect or intention, but on the contrary confirmed it in both.

All this while, although I was fixed, “firm as the surge-repelling rock,” in my resolution, I found I was continually repenting the rashness which had led me to make it.  Through life, I have been in no bondage, either real or imaginary, from the thraldom of which I so much desired to be free.  After my return home, I saw nothing to change my opinions of her in any particular.  She was the same, and so was I. I now spent my time in planning how I might get along through life after my contemplated change of circumstances should have taken place, and how I might procrastinate the evil day for a time, which I really dreaded as much, perhaps more, than an Irishman does the halter.