There was love but no love making or giddy flirtation between us, so I have no foundation for a thrilling story, even if I wished to make one. Marriage has always seemed to me such a sacred thing as to be a solemn matter rather than something to be treated in a joking manner. It is next to birth and death, the most important event in a person’s life, and I never could understand how a young woman or a man could talk about their marriage as triflingly as they would about their chances in a lottery or a game of cards. No wonder there is so much marital disagreement and unhappiness, when the married life is entered upon with so much thoughtlessness and frivolity. I had received an impression from Mr. Percy, when he talked so sacredly of his affianced, and this never left me. How much I have to thank him for the good influence he made upon my whole life. I try to keep my heart grateful and ever mindful of the favors I receive from others. It seems to me that one of the great sins of humanity is ingratitude. It may possibly appear greater than it really is, because people take so little pains to show their gratitude. I have, at considerable sacrifice at times, granted favors, and those to whom they were given, took them as a matter of course, very indifferently, thus injuring themselves, and depriving me of considerable pleasure. But I am running wild again. This is a habit of mine, as those acquainted with me well know, and my wife, later in life, often laughed at me, for always wanting to point a moral, or adorn a tale with some of my practical remarks. But as there are many worse habits than this, I am content. I returned to London as light-hearted and happy as if I had won a kingdom, and I was to be crowned its king. My business was finished, but I had much to see in that great kaleidoscope of the world. The top of an omnibus was my point of observation at first. What a collection of moving things, hurrying, scurrying, joggling and jostling each other, apparently without any purpose, except to keep going! I thought if I were able to write a book I would make one on, “What I saw from the top of an omnibus in London.” All sorts and conditions of men, the staid men of business, the “crows” in long black gowns, the obsequious shopmen, the swells, the cabbies, the bewildered countrymen, the beggars ready to carry your cane to get “a penny for a bite to eat for a poor man,” the sweepers, the cat’s meat men, and the fellows on the corners crying, “a penny a shine, sur,” castes, castes, no end of them. One day an Englishman remarked to me, “You have a great many castes in India?” “Yes, I replied, about as many as you have in England.” He looked at me with a stare, as if he thought I was guying him, and then said, “I think you are about right.”