nterview, and, although I had seen her before, she did not look
as my imagination had pictured her. I knew she was over-size, but she
now appeared a fair match for Falstaff. I knew she was called an "old
maid," and I felt no doubt of the truth of at least half of the
appellation, but now, when I beheld her, I could not for my life avoid
thinking of my mother; and this, not from withered features,--for her
skin was too full of fat to permit of its contracting into wrinkles--but
from her want of teeth, weather-beaten appearance in general, and from a
kind of notion that ran in my head that nothing could have commenced at
the size of infancy and reached her present bulk in less than
thirty-five or forty years; and, in short, I was not at all pleased with
her. But what could I do? I had told her sister that I would take her
for better or for worse, and I made a point of honour and conscience in
all things to stick to my word, especially if others had been induced to
act on it, which in this case I had no doubt they had, for I was now
fairly convinced that no other man on earth would have her, and hence
the conclusion that they were bent on holding me to my bargain. "Well,"
thought I, "I have said it, and, be the consequences what they may, it
shall not be my fault if I fail to do it." At once I determined to
consider her my wife, and this done, all my powers of discovery were put
to work in search of perfections in her which might be fairly set off
against her defects. I tried to imagine her handsome, which, but for her
unfortunate corpulency, was actually true. Exclusive of this, no woman
that I have ever seen has a finer face. I also tried to convince myself
that the mind was much more to be valued than the person, and in this
she was not inferior, as I could discover, to any with whom I had been
acquainted.

Shortly after this, without attempting to come to any positive
understanding with her, I set out for Vandalia, when and where you first
saw me. During my stay there I had letters from her which did not change
my opinion of either her intellect or intention, but, on the contrary,
confirmed it in both.

All this while, although I was fixed "firm as the surge-repelling rock"
in my resolution, I found I was continually repenting the rashness which
had led me to make it. Through life I have been in no bondage, either
real or imaginary, from the thraldom of which I so much desired to be
free. After my return home I saw no