One of the Duke of Marlborough's generals, dining with the Lord Mayor, an Alderman who sat next to him said, "Sir, yours must be a very laborious profession." "No," replied the general, "we fight about four hours in the morning, and two or three after dinner, and then we have all the rest of the day to ourselves." HIS MARRIAGE [Sidenote: _William Cobbett_] When I first saw my wife she was _thirteen years old_.[5] I was within a month of _twenty-one_.[6] She was the daughter of a sergeant of artillery, and I was the sergeant-major of a regiment of foot, both stationed in forts near the city of St. John, in the province of New Brunswick. I sat in the same room with her for about an hour, in the company of others, and I made up my mind that she was the very girl for me. That I thought her beautiful is certain, for that, I had always said, should be an indispensable qualification; but I saw in her what I deemed marks of that sobriety of _conduct_ ... which has been by far the greatest blessing of my life. It was now dead of winter, and, of course, the snow several feet deep on the ground, and the weather piercing cold. It was my habit, when I had done my morning's writing, to go out at break of day to take a walk on a hill at the foot of which our barracks lay. In about three mornings after I had first seen her, I had, by an invitation to breakfast with me, got up two young men to join me in my walk; and our road lay by the house of her father and mother. It was hardly light, but she was out on the snow scrubbing out a washing-tub. "That's the girl for me," said I, when we had got out of hearing. One of these young men came to England soon afterwards; and he, who keeps an inn in Yorkshire, came over to Preston at the time of the election (in 1826) to verify whether I were the same man. When he found that I was he appeared surprised; but what was his surprise when I told him that those tall young men whom he saw around me were the _sons_ of that pretty little girl that he and I saw scrubbing out the washing-tub on the snow in New Brunswick at day-break in the morning!