the courtship was not encouraging. Katharine went
to her neighbors' houses when she knew her suitor was coming to visit
her, and left him to read "Dr. Sibbs Bowels" for scant comfort. She
"look'd dark and lowering" at him and coldly placed tables or her
grandchild's cradle between her chair and his as they sat together. She
avoided seeing him alone. She "let the fire come to one short Brand
beside the Block and fall in pieces and make no recruit"--a broad hint
to leave. She "would not help him on with his coat"--a cutting blow. She
would not let her servant accompany him home with a lantern, but
heartlessly permitted her elderly lover to stumble home alone in the
dark. She spoke to him of his luckless courtship of Widow Denison (a
most unpleasant topic), thus giving a clue to the whole situation, in
showing that Madam Winthrop resented his desertion of her in his first
widowerhood, and like Falstaff, would not "undergo a sneap without
reply." He said, in apologetic answer:

"If after a first and second Vagary she would Accept of me
returning her Victorious Kindness and Good Will would be very
Obliging."

Undeterred by these many rebuffs, as she grew cold he waxed warm, and a
most lover-like and gallant scene ensued which would have done credit to
a younger man than the Judge. Here it is in his own words:

"I asked her to Acquit me of Rudeness if I drew off her Glove.
Enquiring the reason I told her 'twas great odds between handling a
dead Goat and a Living Lady. Got it off.... Told her the reason why
I came every other night was lest I should drink too Deep draughts
of Pleasure. She had talked of Canary, her Kisses were to me better
than the best Canary."

Naturally these warm words had a marked effect; she relaxed, drank a
glass of wine with him, and I trust gave him a Canary-sweet kiss, and
sent a servant home with him with a lantern.

The next visit the wind blew cold again. He had had one experience with
a short-lived wife, and he had determined that should his next wife die
he would still have some positive benefit from having married her. Hence
he kept pressing Madam Winthrop in a most unpleasant and ghoulish manner
to know what she would give him in case she died. He would allow her but
one hundred pounds per annum. She in turn persisted in questioning him
about the property he had given to his children; and she wished him to
agree to keep a coach (which he could