Here there was another interruption by a laugh, not, however, at Mr. O’Leary’s expense.  I gave him a most menacing look, while he continued—­“the settlements were soon drawn up, and consisted, like all great diplomatic documents, of a series of ‘gains and compensations;’ thus, she was not to taste any thing stronger than kirsch wasser, or Nantz brandy; and I limited myself to a pound of short-cut weekly, and so on:  but to proceed, the lady being a good Catholic, insisted upon being married by a priest of her own persuasion, before the performance of the ceremony at the British embassy in Paris; to this I could offer no objection, and we were accordingly united in the holy bonds the same morning, after signing the law papers.”

“Then, Mr. O’Leary, you are really a married man.”

“That’s the very point I’m coming to, ma’am; for I’ve consulted all the jurists upon the subject, and they never can agree.  But you shall hear.  I despatched a polite note to Bishop Luscombe, and made every arrangement for the approaching ceremony, took a quartier in the Rue Helder, near the Estaminet, and looked forward with anxiety for the day which was to make my happy; for our marriage in Lyons was only a kind of betrothal.  Now, my fair friend had but one difficulty remaining, poor dear soul—­I refrain from mentioning her name for delicacy sake; but poor dear Mrs. Ram could not bear the notion of our going up to Paris in the same conveyance, for long as she had lived abroad, she had avoided every thing French, even the language, so she proposed that I should go in the early ‘Diligence,’ which starts at four-o’clock in the morning, while she took her departure at nine; thus I should be some hours sooner in Paris, and ready to receive her on her arriving; besides sparing her bashfulness all reproach of our travelling together.  It was no use my telling her that I always travelled on foot, and hated a ‘Diligence;’ she coolly replied that at our time of life we could not spare the time necessary for a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, for so she supposed the journey from Lyons to Paris to be; so fearing lest any doubt might be thrown upon the ardour of my attachment, I yielded at once, remembering at the moment what my poor friend Tom Bing—­Oh Lord, I’m at it again!”

“Sir, I did not hear.”

“Nothing, ma’am, I was just going to observe, that ladies of a certain time of life, and widows especially, like a lover that seems a little ardent or so, all the better.”  Here Mrs. Bingham blushed, her daughter bridled, and I nearly suffocated with shame and suppressed laughter.

“After a most tender farewell of my bride or wife, I don’t know which, I retired for the night with a mind vacillating between my hopes of happiness and my fears for the result of a journey so foreign to all my habits of travelling, and in which I could not but tremble at the many casualties my habitual laziness and dislike to any hours but of my own choosing might involve me in.