Neal was shrewd enough to know that what he felt must be love;
nothing else could distend him with happiness until his soul felt
light and bladderlike but love. As an oyster opens when expecting
the tide, so did his soul expand at the contemplation of matrimony.
Labour ceased to be a trouble to him; he sang and sewed from morning
till night; his hot goose no longer burned him, for his heart was
as hot as his goose; the vibrations of his head, at each successive
stitch, were no longer sad and melancholy. There was a buoyant
shake of exultation in them which showed that his soul was placid
and happy within him.

Endless honour be to Neal Malone for the originality with which
he managed the tender sentiment! He did not, like your commonplace
lovers, first discover a pretty girl and afterward become enamoured
of her. No such thing; he had the passion prepared beforehand--cut
out and made up, as it were, ready for any girl whom it might fit.
This was falling in love in the abstract, and let no man condemn
it without a trial, for many a long-winded argument could be urged
in its defence. It is always wrong to commence business without
capital, and Neal had a good stock to begin with. All we beg is
that the reader will not confound it with Platonism, which never
marries; but he is at full liberty to call it Socratism, which
takes unto itself a wife and suffers accordingly.

Let no one suppose that Neal forgot the schoolmaster's kindness,
or failed to be duly grateful for it. Mr. O'Connor was the first
person whom he consulted touching his passion. With a cheerful
soul he waited on that melancholy and gentleman-like man, and in
the very luxury of his heart told him that he was in love.