but that I'll have to throw up
the widow after all."

"It must be a bad case, if it's infinitely worse than an engagement, as
you say it is. Why, man, it must be nothing less than actual marriage.
Is that what you're driving at? It must be. So you're a married man,
are you?"

"No, not just that, not quite--as yet--but the very next thing to it?"

"Well, Jack, I'm sorry for you, and all that I can say is, that it is a
pity that this isn't Utah. Being Canada, however, and a civilized
country, I can't see for the life of me how you'll ever manage to pull
through."

Jack sighed dolefully.

"To tell the truth," said he, "it's this last one that gives me my only
trouble. I'd marry the widow, settle up some way with Miss Phillips,
smother my shame, and pass the remainder of my life in peaceful
obscurity, if it were not for _her_."

"You mean by _her_, the lady whose name you don't mention."

"Whose name I don't mention, nor intend to," said Jack, gravely. "Her
case is so peculiar that it cannot be classed with the others. I never
breathed a word about it to anybody, though it's been going on for six
or eight months."

Jack spoke with such earnestness, that I perceived the subject to be
too grave a one in his estimation to be trifled with. A frown came over
his face, and he once more eased his mind by sending forth heavy clouds
of smoke, as though he would thus throw off the clouds of melancholy
that had gathered deep and dark over his soul.

"I'll make a clean breast of it, old chap," said he, at length, with a
very heavy sigh. "It's a bad business from beginning to end."

"You see," said he, after a long pause, in which he seemed to be
collecting his thoughts--"it began last year--the time I went to New
York, you know. She went on at the same time. She had nobody with her
but a deaf old party, and got into some row at the station about her
luggage. I helped her out of it, and sat by her side all the way. At
New York I kept up the acquaintance. I came back with them, that is to
say, with her, and the deaf old party, you know, and by the time we
reached Quebec again we understood one another.

"I couldn't help it--I'll be hanged if I could! You see, Macrorie, it
wasn't an ordinary case. She was the loveliest little girl I ever saw,
and I found myself awfully fond of her in no time. I soon saw that she
was fond of me too. All my other affairs were a joke to this. I wanted
to marry her in New York, but the thought