i8si BETROTHAL 195 



cases, I was slain long before she knew it. You ask 

 for a description. Do you suppose I am to be trusted 

 with one? I half suspect not. I'll give you a very 

 little, however, and you can believe as much of it as 

 you like. 



1 First, then, she is not what you would call 

 pretty, but she is sufficiently pretty to please me. 

 Age about your own, perhaps a trifle younger. She 

 can scarcely be called musical, albeit very fond of it. 

 I mean, she is not much of a player, and but a poor 

 singer, and she knows it. But what of these things ? 

 I can vouch for her heart and mind. I have met with 

 few girls so well read, and with none so witty. Her 

 love of knowledge is so great, and her memory about 

 ten times as big as mine, that I do consider myself a 

 lucky fellow to have caught a wife that takes an 

 interest in all the pursuits that most interest me, and 

 who did so long before I knew her. But she is not a 

 blue. It takes a time to find it out. Then she is so 

 full of mirth and humour, keeping us all laughing. I 

 was always fond of laughing, you know. What more 

 can I say? Her family can't understand how it is 

 possible to live without her, and all the neighbouring 

 poor will miss her almost daily visits. 



* The marriage takes place in June, and if the 

 French and Austrians only let the poor Switzers alone, 

 I hope to carry her up the Rhine to Basle, across to 

 Interlaken, thence over by the Jungfrau to the valley 

 of the Rhone, down to Martigny, round Mont Blanc, 

 and down the Arve to Geneva; not galloping, but 

 taking it leisurely, and staying at the pleasantest 

 places for a few days, as the humour seizes us.' 



Returning to London towards the end of the year, 

 Ramsay resumed his old place and his old duties. 



