“Enough,” said she, “it is enough that you love me and that I have encouraged your so doing.  But oh! tell me once more, and think how much of future happiness may rest upon your answer—­tell me, may not this be some passing attachment, which circumstances have created, and others may dispel?  Say, might not absence, time, or another more worthy”—­

This was certainly a very rigid cross-examination when I thought the trial was over; and not being exactly prepared for it, I felt no other mode of reply than pressing her taper fingers alternately to my lips, and muttering something that might pass for a declaration of love unalterable, but, to my own ears, resembled a lament on my folly.

“She is mine now,” thought I, “so we must e’en make the best of it; and truly she is a very handsome girl, though not a Lady Jane Callonby.  The next step is the mamma; but I do not anticipate much difficulty in that quarter.”

“Leave me now,” said she, in a low and broken voice; “but promise not to speak of this meeting to any one before we meet again.  I have my reasons; believe me they are sufficient ones, so promise me this before we part.”

Having readily given the pledge required, I again kissed her hand and bade farewell, not a little puzzled the whole time at perceiving that ever since my declaration and acceptance Emily seemed any thing but happy, and evidently struggling against some secret feeling of which I knew nothing.  “Yes,” thought I, as I wended my way along the corridor, “the poor girl is tremendously jealous, and I must have said may a thing during our intimacy to hurt her.  However, that is all past and gone; and now comes a new character for me:  my next appearance wil be ’en bon mari.’”

CHAPTER XXXVIII.

THOUGHTS UPON MATRIMONY IN GENERAL, AND IN THE ARMY IN PARTICULAR—­THE KNIGHT OF KERRY AND BILLY M’CABE.

“So,” thought I, as I closed the door of my room behind me, “I am accepted—­the die is cast which makes me a Benedict:  yet heaven knows that never was a man less disposed to be over joyous at his good fortune!” What a happy invention it were, if when adopting any road in life, we could only manage to forget that we had ever contemplated any other!  It is the eternal looking back in this world that forms the staple of all our misery; and we are but ill-requited for such unhappiness by the brightest anticipations we can conjure up for the future.  How much of all that “past” was now to become a source of painful recollection, and to how little of the future could I look forward with even hope!

Our weaknesses are much more constantly the spring of all our annoyances and troubles than even our vices.  The one we have in some sort of subjection:  we are perfectly slaves to the others.  This thought came home most forcibly to my bosom, as I reflected upon the step which led me on imperceptibly to my present embarrassment.  “Well, c’est fini, now,” said I, drawing upon that bountiful source of consolation ever open to the man who mars his fortune—­that “what is past can’t be amended;” which piece of philosophy, as well as its twin brother, that “all will be the same a hundred years hence,” have been golden rules to me from my childhood.