"Pshaw! nonsense! I am not going to declare Miss Vernon is essential to my existence; I dare say I shall have to scramble through life without such companionship; but I do not hesitate to say, I would be a happier man if I thought I had a chance of it; ay, and a better one," I added, after a pause. "I might have some pretension to think of matrimony but for my own confounded folly in incumbering my younger son's portion, as I have done;" and I stuck the spurs into my unfortunate horse's sides, who resented the injustice, by a series of wild plunges, and gave me some trouble to reduce him to order. After walking our horses on for a few paces in silence, Burton said gravely, "I see this is more serious than I at first thought, but whatever your feelings may be, for God's sake, do not rush into any imprudent marriage; it is the most fatal mistake any man ever made; there's not one in a thousand who has the stuff in him to stand its accompaniments unflinchingly; a hundred to one but the consciousness of having dragged himself and the woman he loved into such a scrape, sours his temper and makes him a brute to his wife and a tyrant to his children. I have seen such examples, that I do believe the best proof of affection a poor man can give, is to fly at the first fire from Cupid's battery; and my advice to you is to avoid A---- and its attractions. Do not go on looking and insinuating a thousand things you can never accomplish; but which, in spite of all we say of their inconstancy, live in a girl's memory for many a day after we have forgotten all about it." "By Jove! I must be a more conceited fellow than any in England, if I could for a moment imagine that Miss Vernon would waste a thought on me when I was out of her sight; I wish you could just hear her easy unembarrassed way of begging me to be sure to return; it was the coolest address I ever received from a young lady; her heart and mind seem too well filled to be easily accessible; yet--but I dare not try; you speak truly, Burton, about imprudent marriages; still, I think, it would be worth a struggle to get my affairs into training. I would not ask any woman to marry into poverty, but one might be satisfied with competence and"-- "Just the way all men argue when they want to do a foolish act; what would be competence to a man of your habits?" "Nevertheless, I'll think about it, and look up Egerton; he ought to have bowels of compassion for his brother as well as for every benighted blackamoor under the sun; and his expenses are, I believe, limited to subscribing to all kinds of Evangelical Missions." "Do you mean then seriously to contemplate ----?" "Burton! pray do not look so dismal; I tell you it's a long look out; I do not know what I shall do." "You'll go over to A---- in spite of my warning?"