under no circumstances was I ever invited to show off. My modest part
in society was not crowned with greater success. Ma (dear heart!)
objected to dancing, and I never learned; I didn't go to picnics, for I
don't know how to drive; I tried smoking, and it made me sick; if I
drank wine, I was sure to go to sleep: in fact, none of the amusements
of other young men ever amused me; and the result was, the money they
spent, I saved.

Envious people have hinted at this as the attraction which first caught
the respected mother of my Malinda Jane and the respected mother-in-law
of myself; but ideas so unbecoming I repel with proper scorn.

I do not think myself more stupid than the average of mankind; but,
somehow, while they walked through the middle of the streets, I sought
the narrow alleys; and while others aspired to noise and distinction, I
found retirement and Malinda Jane. (It _was_ in an alley I first met
Mrs. J. Moses Butterby--though this in no way concerns the present
narrative.)

Malinda Jane (I trust I am not violating any matrimonial law in thus
familiarly speaking of my respected helpmeet)--Malinda Jane, from the
first time I beheld her, up to the present period of a long, and I may
say intimate, acquaintance, appears to me a paragon of all the modest
and retiring virtues. If among her many attractions she is possessed of
a distinguishing trait, it lies in the power of her eyes. So much
language do their depths contain, that to me, at least, any other is in
a great measure a superfluity. I should be afraid to count up the
consecutive hours we have spent in this silent converse, reading each
other's hearts, as some pleasant poet has styled it, "through the
windows of the soul." I would not have you suppose them almond-shaped or