However, at last what will not time do. It was about four years from the
date of this adventure, when I became so, from oblivion of my former
failure, as again to tempt my fortune. My present choice, in every way
unlike the last, was a gay, lively girl, of great animal spirits, and a
considerable turn for raillery, that spared no one; the members of her
own family were not even sacred in her eyes; and her father, a reverend
dean, as frequently figured among the ludicrous as his neighbours.

"The Evershams had been very old friends of a rich aunt of mine, who
never, by the by, had condescended to notice me till I made their
acquaintance; but no sooner had I done so, than she sent for me, and gave
me to understand that in the event of my succeeding to the hand of Fanny
Eversham, I should be her heir, and the possessor of about sixty thousand
pounds. She did not stop here; but by canvassing the dean in my favour,
speedily put the matter on a most favourable footing, and in less than
two months I was received as the accepted suitor of the fair Fanny, then
one of the reigning belles of Dublin.

"They lived at this time about three miles from town, in a very pretty
country, where I used to pass all my mornings, and many of my evenings
too, in a state of happiness that I should have considered perfect, if
it were not for two unhappy blots--one, the taste of my betrothed for
laughing at her friends; another the diabolical propensity to talk
politics of my intended father-in-law--to the former I could submit; but
with the latter, submission only made bad worse; for he invariably drew
up as I receded, drily observing that with men who had no avowed
opinions, it was ill agreeing; or that, with persons who kept their
politics as a school-boy does his pocket-money, never to spend, and
always ready to change, it was unpleasant to dispute. Such taunts as
these I submitted to as well as I might; secretly resolving, that as I