“Then she left me, and soon was surrounded by a crowd of young men. I did not have a chance to talk with her any more that night, and when I went home my mind was full of strange conjectures and conflicting emotions. One question appeared to be pretty well settled, and that was a perfect knowledge on my part that all my hopes of happiness would be destroyed if Lottie should refuse to marry me. Love is a strange passion, and no one knows how it can upset a man’s equanimity, unless he has learned it by actual experience. It is a passion that produces indescribable happiness to those who are loved in return, but of all the distressing pains and horrible torture that mortal man ever felt, that which he suffers when his mind is racked with doubt on that subject is the greatest. I had resolved a hundred times to have that question settled, but when in Lottie’s presence my tongue was paralyzed and my brain refused to lay out a sensible idea. I had ordered a jeweler to make an exquisite gold ring, with a beautiful diamond set, and had Lottie’s and my name engraved on the inside. This I had carried in my pocket for two weeks, intending to ask her to accept it as an engagement ring, but for reasons already stated I failed to do it. I had written out and memorized what I supposed to be an eloquent speech, which I intended to deliver with the ring, but my courage oozed out the very moment those large, beautiful blue eyes set their sight on me. Lottie had a strange habit of looking me square in the face, which never failed to set my limbs to trembling and my heart to thumping. I was considered a privileged guest at Mr. Rockland’s house, not by him, but by Lottie, and I visited there often, and was frequently so unlucky as to meet Mr. Heartsell there, and sometimes other young men who had entered the lists. I watched Lottie very closely, but I could not tell whether she loved any one of her suitors or not. So far as I was able to judge, she treated all alike.