acrificing offer. So there I was--and I'll be hanged,
Macrorie, isn't it odd?--there's the third person that's refused to
marry me off-hand! I vow I did what I could. I offered to marry her at
once, and she declined just as the others did. With that I turned the
tables on her, reproached her for her coldness, told her that I had
given her the highest possible mark of my regard, and bade her adieu.
We shook hands. Hers was very languid, and she looked at me quite
indifferently. I told her that she'd feel differently to-morrow, and
she said perhaps she might And so I left her.

"Well, then, I had the widow to visit, but the letter and the affair
with Miss Phillips had worn out my resources. In any ordinary case, the
widow was too many guns for me, but, in a case like this, she was
formidable beyond all description. So I hunted up the chaplain, and
made him go with me. He's a good fellow, and is acquainted with her a
little, and I knew that she liked him. So we went off there together.
Well, do you know, Macrorie, I believe that woman saw through the whole
thing, and knew why the chaplain had come as well as I did. She greeted
me civilly, but rather shortly; and there was a half-smile on her
mouth, confound it! She's an awfully pretty woman, too! We were there
for a couple of hours. She made us dine--that is to say, I expected to
dine as a matter of course, and she invited the chaplain. So we stayed,
and I think for two hours I did not exchange a dozen words with her.
She directed her conversation almost exclusively to the chaplain. I
began to feel jealous at last, and tried to get her attention, but it
was no go. I'm rather dull, you know--good-natured, and all that, but
not clever--while the chaplain is one of the cleverest men going; and
the widow's awfully clever, too. They got beyond me in no time. They
were talking all sorts of stuff about Gregorian chants, ecclesiastic
symbolism, mediaeval hymns, the lion of St Mark, chasuble, alb, and all
that sort of thing, you know, no end, and I sat like a log listening,
just the same as though they spoke Chinese, while the widow took no
more notice of me than if I'd been a Chinaman. And she kept up that
till we left. And that was her way of paying me off. And the chaplain
thought she was an awfully clever woman, and admired her--no end. And I
felt as jealous as Othello.

"Then I hurried off to Louie. But luck was against me. There was a lot
of fellows there, and I didn't get a