the eyes of a young man in his twenty-eighth year, and to those of an old woman in her eighty-fourth; the girl of my grandmother’s choice might appear to her the very ne plus ultra of perfection, and to me—whether justly or unjustly is not the question here—the least attractive of all human beings. And again, with the exception of some trifling love-adventure when at college, I have really never thought seriously of marriage at all; and had that stupid fellow of a Recorder not come out with his silly story about the seven girls, it is highly probable the matter of matrimony would never once have entered into my head during my stay at Klarenburg. I am quite sure that were I to confess the truth I am desirous of remaining a little longer an unfettered man; ten years hence there will be time to think of changing; and there will still be plenty young women to pick and choose a wife from.”
At these latter words of my soliloquy my spirits in spite of myself began to sink a little; for I calculated that I would then be thirty-eight years of age, and that were some fair object then to intwine herself with my affections, I might have to encounter no small amount of dislike on her part to my years and appearance. I was now on the point of forswearing marriage altogether; but checked myself before the rash resolution found expression in words.
Amid thoughts such as these the steeples of Klarenburg caught my eye in the distance, and as the carriage approached the town, I felt a stifling sensation at my heart more and more oppressing my whole mental and bodily frame; the town itself looked gloomy and repulsive though tinged with the setting rays of an evening-sun; and I could not look upon the walls which contained within their circuit the being whom my departed relative had destined for my companion in life without emotions indefinite indeed but of an exquisitely painful nature,—my whole frame was convulsed with an agitation which I vainly strove to repress.
“Stop!” cried I to the postillion, while passing a very ele-
