During the twelve months succeeding his recovery, so far as I am aware,
nothing occurred worthy of being recorded in Gagtooth's annals. About
the expiration of that time, however, his landlady, by his authority,
at his request, and in his presence, made an announcement to the
boarders assembled at the dinner-table which, I should think, must
literally have taken away their breaths.

Gagtooth was going to be married!

I don't suppose it would have occasioned greater astonishment if it had
been announced as an actual fact that The Illinois river had commenced
to flow backwards. It was surprising, incredible, but, like many other
surprising and incredible things, it was true. Gagtooth was really and
truly about to marry. The object of his choice was his landlady's
sister, by name Lucinda Bowlsby. How or when the wooing had been
carried on, how the engagement had been led up to, and in what terms
the all-important question had been propounded, I am not prepared to
say. I need hardly observe that none of the boarders had entertained
the faintest suspicion that anything of the kind was impending. The
courtship, from first to last, must have been somewhat of a piece with
that of the late Mr. Barkis. But alas! Gagtooth did not settle his
affections so judiciously, nor did he draw such a prize in the
matrimonial lottery as Barkis did. Two women more entirely dissimilar,
in every respect, than Peggotty and Lucinda Bowlsby can hardly be
imagined. Lucinda was nineteen years of age. She was pretty, and, for a
girl of her class and station in life, tolerably well educated. But she
was notwithstanding a light, giddy creature--and, I fear, something
worse, at that time. At all events, she had a very questionable sort of
reputation among the boarders in the house, and was regarded with