where I lived, I saw a fine girl from New Hampshire, with
whom I became acquainted--so easily, so far as she was concerned--that I
ought to have been warned to have nothing to do with her; but, as usual,
in such cases, my common sense left me, and I was infatuated enough to
fancy that I was in love.

Mary Gordon was the daughter of a farmer living near Keene, N. H., and
was a handsome girl about twenty years of age. She was going, she told
me, to visit some friends in Bennington, and would be there about a
month, during which time, if I was in that vicinity, she hoped I would
come and see her. We parted very lovingly, and when she had been in
Bennington a few days she wrote to me, setting a time for me to visit
her; but in business in Brattleboro was too good to leave, and I so
wrote to her. Whereupon, in another week, she came back to Brattleboro
and proposed to finish the remainder of her visit there, thus blinding
her friends at home who would think she was all the while at Bennington.

Our brief acquaintance when she was at the house before, attracted no
particular attention, and when she came now I told the landlord that she
was my cousin, and he gave her a room and I paid her bills. The cousin
business was a full cover to our intimacy; she sat next to me at the
table, rode about with me to see my patients, and when I went to places
near by to sell medicine, and we were almost constantly together. Of
course, we were engaged to be married, and that very soon.

In a fortnight after her arrival I went home with her to her father's
farm near Keene, and she told her mother that we were "engaged." The old
folks thought they would like to know me a little better, but she said
we were old friends, she knew me thoroughly, and meant to marry me.
There was no further objection on the part of her parents, and in the
few days following she and her mother were busily engaged in preparing
her clothes and outfit.

I then announced my intention of returning to Brattleboro to settle up
my business in that place, and she declared she would go with me; I
was sure to be lonesome; she might help me about my bills, and so on.
Strange as it may seem, her parents made no objection to her going,
though I was to be absent a fortnight, and was not to be married till
I came back. So we went together, and I and my "cousin" put up at the
hotel we had lately left. For two weeks I was busy in making my final
visits to my patients acquaintances