“That is a sad confession, colonel, but it is the truth. The bright eyes and smiles of a girl had terminated a life-long friendship. The mere love of admiration in the heart of a young girl had interrupted the affection of years--making George and myself cold and _distrait_ toward each other. Soon things became still worse. From friends we had become mere acquaintances--from acquaintances we became strangers, and finally foes. Busy-bodies whispered, tale-bearers blew the flames. If the young lady smiled on me at a party where George was present, the good people around us looked at _him_ with satirical meaning. If she smiled on George, their eyes were turned toward me, and they giggled and whispered. “That is all tedious--is it not? An old story, which every country neighborhood knows. You laugh, perhaps, at hearing it told of A and B,--but you do not laugh when you are one of the actors. Well, not to lengthen my history unduly, an open rivalry and enmity at last arose between myself and poor George. We had been spurred on to hate each other, and narrowly escaped having an ‘affair’ together--appealing to the pistol as the arbiter. “It never came to that, however. I saw, ere long, that the young lady had made up her mind. George was in every way a more attractive and lovable person than myself; and after drawing me on, encouraging me, and inducing me to offer her my hand, she turned her back on me, and married George! “Such was the result of the campaign. George had won,--and I am obliged to say that I hated him cordially. I should never have done so, from the simple fact of his success. I am not so ignoble as that, my dear colonel. Bitter as was my disappointment, I could have bowed to the fiat--pardoned the young lady--and offered my hand to dear George; but there were our ‘friends,’ the busy-bodies and talebearers. They were unresting in their exertions--took the whole affair under their personal supervision, and invented a hundred fables to sting and arouse me. You would have said that they were bloody minded--the busy-bodies--and bent on trouble; that their aim was to profoundly enrage me, and cause bloodshed. George had laughed at me, they said; never had had a moment’s doubt of the young lady’s sentiments; had often jested about me, and expressed his pity for my ‘silly presumption;’ had even amused himself and the young lady, by mimicking my peculiarities, and raising a laugh at my expense. “These reports were persistently and regularly repeated for my information: I was baited, and worried, and driven nearly mad by them--finally a duel nearly resulted; but that last step was not taken. I simply made my bow to the happy pair, left them without a word, and returned home, determined to drop the whole matter--but none the less enraged and embittered.