“Why lengthen out my story by comment, reflections, a description of every scene, and the progressive steps through which the ‘affair’ passed? I was in love with Miss Mortimer. She saw it. Her eyes said, ‘Love me as much as you choose, and don’t be afraid I will not love you soon, in return.’ At the end of this interview, which the worthy Mr. Mortimer did not interrupt for at least two hours, I rode home thinking with a throb of the heart ‘If she will only love me?’ Then the throb was succeeded by a sudden sinking of the same organ. ‘But there will be no opportunity!’ I groaned, ‘doubtless in two or three days she will leave this part of the country!’ A week afterward that apprehension had been completely removed. Miss Mortimer was still faint and weak, ‘from her accident.’ All her movements were slow and languid. She had not left the good parson’s house, Surry--and what is more she was not going to leave it! She had learned what she desired to know about me; heard that I was a young man of great wealth; and had devised a scheme so singular that--but let me not anticipate! She proceeded rapidly. In our second interview she ‘made eyes at me.’ In the third, she blushed and murmured, avoiding my glances, when I looked at her. In the fourth, she blushed more deeply when I took her hand--but did not withdraw it. In the fifth, the fair head in some manner had come to rest on my shoulder--no doubt from weakness. And in a few days afterward the shy, embarrassed, loving, palpitating creature, blushing deeply, ‘sunk upon my bosom,’ as the poets say, and murmured, ‘How can I resist you?’ “In other words, my dear friend, _Miss Mortimer_ had promised to become _my wife_, and I need not say, I was the happiest of men. I thought with rapture of the bliss I was about to enjoy in having by my side, throughout life, this charming creature. I trembled at the very thought that the accident in the wood might not have happened, and I might never have known her! I was at the parsonage morning, noon, and night. When not beside _her_ I was riding through the forest at full speed, with bared brow, laughing lips, and shouts of joy--in a word, my dear friend, I was as much intoxicated as ever youth was yet, and fed on froth and moonshine to an extent that was really astonishing! “There was absolutely nothing to oppose our marriage. My old guardian, it is true, shook his head, and suggested inquiries into the family, position, character, etc., of the Mortimers; I was young, wealthy, heir of one of the oldest families, he said, and sharpers might deceive me. But all I heard was the word ‘sharpers’--and I left my guardian, whose functions had ceased now, in high displeasure at his unworthy imputations. That angel a sharper! That pure, devoted creature, guilty of deception! I fell into a rage; swore never to visit my guardian again; and returning to the parsonage urged a speedy consummation of our marriage.