Affected as I was by her agitated feelings, my composition was of too determined a nature to allow me to give way; having once determined, nothing but death could have deterred me from persevering, and, while I was going to bed, I deliberately resolved to keep my word. Nor was this only the start of the moment; on the contrary, I am quite sure that had not the parties complied with my wish, to fix the day before I left the house, I should never have been the husband of Miss Halcomb. I was resolved to be plain and honest with the father, and to disguise nothing from him, and in case he should refuse his consent, I was equally resolved to leave nothing untried to gain the consent of the lady; if she withheld it I had brought myself, much as I loved her, to give up for ever all hopes, all intention, of being united, or of having any further communication, with her. With this determination I went to sleep, though with full confidence that I should succeed, notwithstanding the repulse I had received from her before we parted. My fair readers, will, I fear, call me a conceited puppy for my pains; but I assure them it was not vanity; it was part of my nature to be sanguine and determined in any thing, in every thing, that I undertook; for I believed that success seldom completely crowned an enterprise, unless he who wished to obtain it had confidence that he should succeed. When I came to the breakfast table in the morning, I could perceive that the fair object of my hopes had not enjoyed so much repose as I had done daring the night. Her heart appeared to be ill at ease. I had never slept better or sounder in my life. This is another extraordinary part of my composition, or rather of my constitution; namely, the physical operation of the Mental power over the animal frame. The more intense the operation of my mind during the day, the better do I sleep at night; the greater the object which I have to accomplish in the morning, the more serene is my sleep; so that when I have any weighty business to perform that requires the exertion of my whole mental as well as bodily powers, instead of being agitated with the anxiety arising from the importance of the undertaking, I am quite the reverse, I am perfectly tranquil, I am sure to sleep well; and to awake so much refreshed in the morning, as to enable me to commence the business of the day not only with vigour, but also with my senses quite collected, and with the greatest calmness of mind. I appeared upon this occasion so easy and so quiet, yet altogether so determined, that I often afterwards heard my wife say that she, for the first time, began to suspect the sincerity of my passion; its ardour she never doubted. The fact was, that if I had harboured all the doubts that she did, as to the success of my application to her father, I might have felt as uneasy as she did; and should have been thereby rendered incapable of successfully combating his arguments or objections.