LOYLS Of A BACHELOll. 349 



presence, never imagining for a moment that it could by possibility 

 have even the most distant relation to the affair of last night. Judge 

 then of my horror when the first thing which met my eye, as I reached 

 the interior of the package, was the identical ill-fated epistle to Miss 

 Bennett, soliciting her hand in marriage, accompanied by an ugly piece 

 of paper, on^which there were some fourteen or fifteen lines scrawled 

 in a most miserable specimen of penmanship, with the signature of 

 Miss B.'s father attached to it. I perused it, and was in the act 

 of sending it up the chimney in a small volume of smoke, when one 

 of my two friends (we were on the most familiar terms) snatched it 

 from the doom which it was about to receive, exclaiming in a jocular 

 sort of tone, " What can this be, Jonathan (such is my Christian 

 name), that you seem in so great a rage at it?" And scarcely had 

 the words escaped the margin of his lips than he read aloud the note 

 from beginning to end. I saw perfectly, although they pretended 

 great commiseration for me, that the whole matter afforded a rich 

 treat to them; and yet I had not sufficient nerve at the time to in- 

 timate as much to them. The substance of the obnoxious morceau 

 was that he (the son of Esculapius) had read the epistle I had ad- 

 dressed last night to his daughter — that from the very short and very 

 slight acquaintance I had with Miss B. he looked on that epistle in 

 no other light than as a direct insult both to her and him — that on read- 

 ing it she happily characterised the inditer of it as a great bore — and 

 that the only consideration which deterred him from inflicting on me 

 a certain species of chastisement, was the charitable supposition that 

 I must, at the time of penning it, have been either labouring under 

 an alienation of intellect, or must have by mistake addressed to his 

 daughter what had been specially intended for some other young lady. 



I'lie reader will most probably take it for granted that, immediately 

 on perusing this odious note, I fell down on the floor as a dead man. 

 No such thing. But I am free to confess that it was a most fortunate 

 circumstance in one sense, however humiliating otherwise, that my 

 two acquaintances already referred to were present at the time ; for 

 had I been by myself I would, in all probability, in the feeling of 

 the moment, have rashly committed a crime, the name of which be- 

 gins with an s and ends with an e. 



My two acquaintances seemed in truth to have anticipated some- 

 thing of the kind, fi)r they remained with me the whole of the fore- 

 noon, a much longer time than I had ever known them to do on 

 any former occasion. 



The unfortunate manner in which the affair in question terminated 

 made me form two resolutions, the first of which was that I should 

 never again pay my addresses to any female on earth, and the second 

 was that I should, with all possible expedition, repair to another part 

 of the country where I might be placed beyond the reach of the ridi- 

 cule I had brought on myself, or rather which the reprehensible 

 sayings and doings of others had brought on me. 



The second resolution was speedily put in execution : in a fortnight 

 thereafter I was situated in the Scottish metro|K)lis, which is nearly 

 two hundred miles distant from the scene of the recent unfortu- 

 nate adventure. 



