254 MARK TWAIN'S SKETCHES. 



She says that when she was sixteen years old she met and loved, with all the 

 devotion of a passionate nature, a young man from New Jersey, named Williamson 

 Breckinridge Caruthers, who was some six years her senior. They were engaged, 

 with the free consent. of tlieir friends and relatives, and for a time it seemed as if 

 their career was destined to be characterized by an immunity from sorrow beyond 

 the usual lot of humanity. But at last the tide of fortune turned ; young Caruthers 

 became infected with small-pox of the most virulent type, and when he recovered 

 from his illness his face was jjitted like a waffle-mould, and his comeliness gone for 

 ever. Aurelia thought to break off the engagement at first, but pity for her 

 unfortunate lover caused her to postpone the marriage-day for a season, and give 

 him another trial. 



The very day before the wedding was to have taken place, Breckinridge, while ' 

 absorbed in watching the flight of a balloon, walked into a well and fractured one 

 of his legs, and it had to be taken off above the knee. Again Aurelia was moved 

 to break the engagement, but again love triumphed, and she set the day forward 

 and gave him another chance to reform. 



And again misfortune overtook the unhappy youth. He lost one arm by the 

 premature discharge of a Fourth-of-July cannon, and within three months he got 

 the other pulled out by a carding-machine. Aurelia 's heart was almost crushed by 

 these latter calamities. She could not but be deeply grieved to see her lover pass- 

 ing from her by piecemeal, feeling, as she did, that he could not last for ever under 

 this disastrous process of reduction, yet knowing of no way to stop its dreadftll 

 career, and in her tearful despair she almost regretted, like brokers who hold on 

 and lose, that she had not taken him at first, before he had suffered such an 

 alarming depreciation. Still, her brave soul bore her up, and she resolved to bear 

 with her friend's unnatural disposition yet a little longer. 



Again the wedding-day approached, and again disappointment overshadowed 

 it : Caruthers fell ill with the erysipelas, and lost the use of one his eyes entirely. 

 The friends and relatives of the bride, considering that she had already put up with 

 more than could reasonably be expected of her, now came forward and insisted that 

 the match should be broken off, but after wavering awhile, Aurelia, with a generous 

 spirit which did her credit, said she had reflected calmly upon the matter, and could 

 not discover that Breckinridge was to blame._ 



