In my first description of the company in which I pass most of my
time, it may be remembered that I mentioned a great affliction
which my friend Sir Roger had met with in his youth; which was no
less than a disappointment in love. It happened this evening
that we fell into a very pleasing walk at a distance from his
house. As soon as we came into it, "It is," quoth the good old
man, looking round him with a smile, "very hard, that any part of
my land should be settled upon one who has used me so ill as the
perverse widow did; and yet I am sure I could not see a sprig of
any bough of this whole walk of trees, but I should reflect upon
her and her severity. She has certainly the finest hand of any
woman in the world. You are to know this was the place wherein I
used to muse upon her; and by that custom I can never come into
it, but the same tender sentiments revive in my mind, as if I had
actually walked with that beautiful creature under these shades.
I have been fool enough to carve her name on the bark of several
of these trees; so unhappy is the condition of men in love, to
attempt the removing of their passions by the methods which serve
only to imprint it deeper. She has certainly the finest hand of
any woman in the world."

Here followed a profound silence; and I was not displeased to
observe my friend falling so naturally into a discourse, which I
had ever before taken notice he industriously avoided. After a
very long pause he entered upon an account of this great
circumstance in his life, with an air which I thought raised my
idea of him above what I had ever had before; and gave me the
picture of that chearful mind of his, before it received that
stroke which has ever since affected his words and actions. But