any particular. She was the same, and so was I. I now spent my time in
planning how I might get along in 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.

After all my sufferings upon this deeply interesting subject, here I
am, wholly, unexpectedly, completely out of the "scrape," and I now want
to know if you can guess how I got out of it--out, clear, in every sense
of the term--no violation of word, honour, or conscience. I don't
believe you can guess, and so I might as well tell you at once. As the
lawyer says, it was done in the manner following, to wit: After I had
delayed the matter as long as I thought I could in honour do (which, by
the way, had brought me round into the last fall), I concluded I might
as well bring it to a consummation without further delay, and so I
mustered my resolution and made the proposal to her direct; but,
shocking to relate, she answered, No. At first I supposed she did it
through an affectation of modesty, which I thought but ill became her
under the peculiar circumstances of the case, but on my renewal of the
charge I found she repelled it with greater firmness than before. I
tried it again and again, but with the same success, or rather with the
same want of success.

I finally was forced to give it up, at which I very unexpectedly found
myself mortified almost beyond endurance. I was mortified, it seemed to
me, in a hundred different ways. My vanity was deeply wounded by the
reflection that I had so long been too stupid to discover her
intentions, and at the same time never doubting that I understood them
perfectly; and also that she, whom I had taught myself to believe nobody
else would have, had actually rejected me with all my fancied greatness.