“You have only half lived your life. No old bachelor—meaning a man after forty—knows anything of real happiness. It is necessary to be married, in order to be truly happy.” “I wonder you did not add, ‘two or three times.’ But you may make this new contract with greater confidence than either of the others. I suppose you have seen this new divorce project that is, or has been, before the legislature?” “Divorce! I trust no such foolish law will pass. This calling marriage a ‘contract,’ too, is what I never liked. It is something far more than a ‘contract,’ in my view of the matter.” “Still, that is what the law considers it to be. Get out of this new scrape, Ned, if you can with any honour, and remain an independent freeman for the rest of your days. I dare say the widow could soon find some other amorous youth to place her affections on. It matters not much whom a woman loves, provided she love. Of this, I’m certain, from seeing the sort of animals so many _do_ love.” “Nonsense; a bachelor talking of love, or matrimony, usually makes a zany of himself. It is _terra incognita_ to you, my boy, and the less you say about it, the better. You are the only human being, Tom, I ever met with, who has not, some time or other, been in love. I really believe you never knew what the passion is” “I fell in love, early in life, with a certain my lord Coke, and have remained true to my first attachment. Besides, I saw I had an intimate friend who would do all the marrying that was necessary for two, or even for three; so I determined, from the first, to remain single. A man has only to be firm, and he may set Cupid at defiance. It is not so with women, I do believe; it is part of their nature to love, else would no woman admire you, at your time of life.” “I don’t know that—I am by no means sure of that. Each time I had the misfortune to become a widower, I was just as determined to pass the remainder of my days in reflecting on the worth of her I had lost, as you can be to remain a bachelor; but somehow or other, I don’t pretend to account for it, not a year passed before I have found inducements to enter into new engagements. It is a blessed thing, is matrimony, and I am resolved not to continue single an hour longer than is necessary.” Dunscomb laughed out, at the earnest manner in which his friend spoke, though conversations, like this we have been relating, were of frequent occurrence between them. “The same old sixpence, Ned! A Benedict as a boy, a Benedict as a man, and a Benedict as a dotard——” “Dotard! My good fellow, let me tell you——” “Poh! I don’t desire to hear it. But as you came on business connected with the law, and that business is not a marriage-settlement, what is it? Does old Kingsborough maintain his right to the Harlem lot?” “No, he has given the claim up, at last. My business, Tom, is of a very different nature. What are we coming to, and what is to be the end of it all!”