well afford to do), and she wanted
it set on springs too. He said he could not do it while he paid his
debts. She also suggested that he should wear a wig. This annoyed him
beyond measure, for he hated with extreme Puritan intenseness those
"horrid Bushes of Vanity," and the suggestion from his would-be bride
was irritating in the extreme. He answered her with much self-control:

"As to a Periwigg my best and Greatest Friend begun to find me with
Hair before I was born and has continued to do so ever since and I
could not find it in my heart to go to another."

Still, when nearly all the men of dignity and position in the colony
wore imposing stately wigs, no woman would be pleased to have a lover
come a-courting in a _hood_.

So, though she gave him "drams of Black Cherry Brandy" and Canary to
drink and comfits and lump sugar to eat, while he so pressed her to name
her settlement on him, and while the wig and coach questions were so
adversely met, she would not answer yes, and he regretted making more
haste than good speed. At last the lover of the "kisses sweeter than
Canary" critically notes that his mistress has not on "Clean Linen;" and
the next day he writes rather sourly, "I did not bid her draw off her
Glove as sometime I had done. Her dress was not so clean as sometime it
had been;" the beginning of the end was plainly come. That week he
forbade her being invited to a family dinner, and she in turn gave a
"treat" from which he was excluded. Thus ended his fourth wooing.

The next widow on whom he called was Widow Belknap, but eftsoons he
transferred his attention to Widow Ruggles and wrote thus sentimentally
to her brother:

"I remember when I was going from school at Newbury to have
sometime met your sisters Martha and Mary in Hanging Sleeves coming
home from their school in Chandlers Lane, and have had the pleasure
of speaking to them. And I could find it in my heart to speak to
Mrs. Martha again, now I myself am reduc'd to my Hanging Sleeves.
The truth is, I have little occasion for a Wife but for the sake of
Modesty, and to lay my Weary Head in Her Lap, if it might be
brought to pass upon Honest Conditions. You know your sisters Age
and Disposition and Circumstances. I should like your advice in my
Fluctuations."

The Judge called on Mrs. Martha, probably after learning with precision
her circumstances. "I showed my willingness to renew