"Don't they, though? Not a deuced thing have I been able to do since that little gipsy took the room overhead, about a week ago! Pat—pat—pat, go those little feet over the floor, till I am as nervous as a cat in a china closet, (and confounded pretty they are, too, for I caught sight of 'em going up stairs.) Then I can hear her little rocking-chair creak, as she sits there sewing, and she keeps singing, 'Love not—love not,' (just as if a fellow could help it.) Wish she wasn't quite so pretty; it makes me decidedly uncomfortable. Wonder if she has any great six-footer of a brother, or cousin with a sledge-hammer fist? Wish I was her washerwoman, or the little nigger who brings her breakfast; wish she'd faint away on the stairs; wish the house would catch fire to-night! Here I am, in this great barn of a room (all alone;) chairs and things set up square against the wall; no little feminine fixins round; I shall have to buy a second-hand bonnet, or a pair of little gaiter-boots, to cheat myself into the delusion that there's two of us! Wish that little gipsy wasn't as shy as a rabbit? I can't meet her on the stairs if I die for it; I've upset my inkstand a dozen times, hopping up, when I thought I heard her coming. Wonder if she knows (when she sits vegetating there,) that Shakspeare, or Sam Slick, or somebody says, that 'happiness is born a twin?' 'cause if she don't, I'm the missionary that will enlighten her? Wonder if she earns her living, (poor little soul!) It's time I had a wife, by Christopher! (Sitting there, pricking her pretty little fingers with that murderous needle!) If she was sewing on my dickeys, it would be worth while now. That's it—by Jove! I'll get her to make me some dickeys—don't want 'em any more than Satan wants holy water, but that's neither here nor there. I shall insist upon her taking the measure of my throat (bachelors have a right to be fussy). There's a pretty kettle of fish, now; either she'll have to stand on a cricket, or I shall have to get on my knees to her! Solomon himself couldn't fix any thing better; deuce take me, if I couldn't say the right thing then! This fitting dickeys is a work of time, too. Dickeys isn't to be got up in a hurry.

"Halloo! there's the door-bell! there's a great big trunk dumped down in the entry! 'Is Mrs. Legare at home?' M-r-s. Legare?! I like that, now! Have I been in love a whole week with M-r-s. Legare? Never mind, may be she's a widow! Tramp, tramp, come those masculine feet up stairs—(handsome fellow, too!) N-e-b-u-c-h-a-d-n-ezzar! If I ever heard a kiss in my life, I heard one then! I won't stand it!—it's an invasion of my rights. I'll listen at the door, as I am a sinner! 'My dear husband!!!'—p-h-e-w! What right have sea-captains on shore, I'd like to know? Confound it all! Well, I always knew women weren't worth thinking of; a set of deceitful little monkeys; changeable as a rainbow, superficial as parrots, as full of tricks as a conjuror, stubborn as mules, vain as peacocks, noisy as magpies, and full of the 'old Harry' all the time! There's 'Delilah,' now; didn't she take the 'strength' out of Sampson?—and weren't 'Sisera' and 'Judith' born fiends? And didn't the little minx of an Herodias dance John the Baptist's head off? Didn't Sarah 'raise Cain' with Abraham, till he packed Hagar off? Then there was——(well, the least said about HER, the better!) but didn't Eve, the foremother of the whole concern, have one talk too many with the old 'serpent?' Of course; (she didn't do nothing else!!) Glad I never set my young affections on any of 'em! Where's my cigar-case! How tormented hot this room is!"