'JO MISADVENTURES OF A, LOVER. 



CHAP. III. 



I WAS very fortunate, as regarded pecuniary matters, on my arrival 

 in Carlisle. One of my old and most intimate school- fellows had 

 been settled there in a respectable way for several years. He at 

 once procured a situation for me. Happily he had not heard of 

 either of the love mishaps I have detailed. On entering my situation 

 I determined to apply myself so closely to business as to keep 

 out of harm's way ; in other words, exclude me from all communi- 

 cation with young ladies. I had come to this determination from 51 

 conviction, induced by past events, that Fate had appointed I should 

 never succeed in any matrimonial attempt. I knew, moreover, as hinted 

 in the outset, that the love of the fair was a component part of my 

 moral constitution, and that to be in a beautiful nymph's company was 

 not only perilous in the extreme, but what is called certain danger. 

 However, though fully aware of all this no Christian could have been 

 more so one cannot walk the streets and high-ways with one's eyes 

 shut. I lived a little distance out of town ; and, in returning in the 

 evening from the day's duties, had to pass some beautiful gardens. 

 Sooth to say, I used very much to delight in dressing gardens with 

 my own hand ; and, if the reports of friends may be credited, dis- 

 played much more than the average taste that way. One of the gar- 

 dens I had to pass in returning home of an evening, seemed to 

 me the very beau ideal of good taste in the science of "laying out." 

 I generally stood eight or ten minutes every evening looking over 

 its wall which fortunately was of no inconvenient altitude admir- 

 ing its beautiful contents. One evening as I popped my head over 

 the garden wall, I saw a new flower an exquisitely beautiful young 

 lady, one of whom Milton would have written " Herself the fairest 

 flower." A deep blush tinged her supremely beautiful cheeks while 

 her lustrous eyes met mine. I felt a momentary entrancement I 

 was glued to the spot on which I stood ; but a recollection of Louisa, 

 and the adventures connected with her, flashing across my mind, I 

 succeeded, after a desperate struggle between prudence and love, in 

 getting my legs to perform their duty in removing me home. 



As will be readily credited, this charming damsel (name at this 

 time unknown) had a liberal share of my thoughts that night. I 

 weighed in my own mind whether, in the event of ascertaining that 

 in addition to her personal attractions, she united respectability of 

 character and station in society, I ought not after all to make an at- 

 tempt on her heart, as she had already, without any seeming effort, 

 conquered mine. The hearing of arguments pro and con robbed me 

 of two or three hour's sleep. The opinion of Sir John Falstaff, that 

 there is divinity in odd numbers, occurred to me, and I believe would 

 have made me decide on seeking an interview had not the awkward 

 issue of Jack's third visit to Mrs. Ford shot athwart my mind, fol- 

 lowed by a painful remembrance of what had happened to myself in 

 my two previous adventures. All this, it is right to add, was suc- 

 ceeded by a recurrence of the afore mentioned conviction that Fate 

 had ordained I was never to be married. The interlocutor of my 



