hat while she was ill, Jemima's love for
me showed itself in such a violent way that her mother was overcome, and
promised that, should the dear child recover, she would try and bring us
together. Castlereagh says she would have gone after us to Jamaica."

"I have no doubt she would," said I.

"Could you have a stronger proof of love than that?" cried Dennis. "My
dear girl's illness and frightful blindness have, of course, injured her
health and her temper. She cannot in her position look to the children,
you know, and so they come under my charge for the most part; and her
temper is unequal, certainly. But you see what a sensitive, refined,
elegant creature she is, and may fancy that she's often put out by a
rough fellow like me."

Here Dennis left me, saying it was time to go and walk out the children;
and I think his story has matter of some wholesome reflection in it for
bachelors who are about to change their condition, or may console some
who are mourning their celibacy. Marry, gentlemen, if you like; leave
your comfortable dinner at the club for cold-mutton and curl-papers at
your home; give up your books or pleasures, and take to yourselves wives
and children; but think well on what you do first, as I have no doubt
you will after this advice and example. Advice is always useful in
matters of love; men always take it; they always follow other people's
opinions, not their own: they always profit by example. When they see a
pretty woman, and feel the delicious madness of love coming over them,
they always stop to calculate her temper, her money, their own money,
or suitableness for the married life.... Ha, ha, ha! Let us fool in this
way no more. I have been in love forty-three times with all ranks and
conditions of women, and would have married every time if they would
have let me. How many wives had King Solomon, the wisest of men? And is
not that story a warning to us that Love is master of the wisest? It is
only fools who defy him.

I must come, however, to the last, and perhaps the saddest, part of poor
Denny Haggarty's history. I met him once more, and in such a condition
as made me determine to write this history.

In the month of June last I happened to be at Richmond, a delightful
little place of retreat; and there, sunning himself upon the terrace,
was my old friend of the 120th: he looked older, thinner, poorer,
and more wretched than I had ever seen him. "What! you have given up
Kingstown?" said I,