"I!--heavens, no! Colonel Morley, such a question insults me."

The Colonel resumed his deepest nasal bass: "It is only, then, because
you don't fancy her now so much as you did last year--fact, you are
soured on her and fly off the handle. Such things do happen. The same
thing has happened to myself, sir. In my days of celibacy, there was a
gal at Saratoga whom I gallantised, and whom, while I was at Saratoga, I
thought Heaven had made to be Mrs. Morley: I was on the very point of
telling her so, when I was suddenly called off to Philadelphia; and at
Philadelphia, sir, I found that Heaven had made another Mrs. Morley. I
state this fact, sir, though I seldom talk of my own affairs, even when
willing to tender my advice in the affairs of another, in order to prove
that I do not intend to censure you if Heaven has served you in the same
manner. Sir, a man may go blind for one gal when he is not yet dry
behind the ears, and then, when his eyes are skinned, go in for one
better. All things mortal meet with a change, as my sisters little boy
said when, at the age of eight, he quitted the Methodys and turned
Shaker. Threep and argue as we may, you and I are both mortals--more's
the pity. Good morning, sir (glancing at the clock, which proclaimed the
hour of 3 P.M.),--I err--good evening."

By the post that day the Colonel transmitted a condensed and laconic
report of his conversation with Graham Vane. I can state its substance
in yet fewer words. He wrote word that Graham positively declined the
invitation to Paris; that he had then, agreeably to Lizzy's instruction,
ventilated the Englishman, in the most delicate terms, as to his
intentions with regard to Isaura, and that no intentions at all existed.
The sooner all thoughts of him were relinquished, as a new suitor on the
ground, the better it would be for the young lady's happiness in the only