with me, telling me of the bets that there were in the county, where the
whole story was known, for and against me. For the fact is, as I must
own, that Mary M'Alister, the queerest, frankest of women, made no
secret of the agreement, or the cause of it.

"I did not care a penny for Orson," she said, "but he would go on
writing me such dear pretty verses that at last I couldn't help saying
yes. But if he breaks his promise to me, I declare, upon my honor, I'll
break mine, and nobody's heart will be broken either."

This was the perfect fact, as I must confess, and I declare that it was
only because she amused me and delighted me, and provoked me, and made
me laugh very much, and because, no doubt, she was very rich, that I had
any attachment for her.

"For heaven's sake, George," my father said to me, as I quitted home to
follow my beloved to London, "remember that you are a younger brother
and have a lovely girl and four thousand a year within a year's reach of
you. Smoke as much as you like, my boy, after marriage," added the old
gentleman, knowingly (as if HE, honest soul, after his second marriage,
dared drink an extra pint of wine without my lady's permission!) "but
eschew the tobacco-shops till then."

I went to London resolving to act upon the paternal advice, and oh! how
I longed for the day when I should be married, vowing in my secret soul
that I would light a cigar as I walked out of St. George's, Hanover
Square.

Well, I came to London, and so carefully avoided smoking that I would
not even go into Hudson's shop to pay his bill, and as smoking was not