“I most assuredly do,” was my positive answer.
My friend, George Brown, turned and walked away a few paces, looking thoughtfully to the ground. He was a splendid looking man, about twenty years of age; my late school-fellow, my present friend and confidant. He was, what I did not flatter myself as being, a great favorite with the ladies. Handsome, tall, manly, of easy address, a fine singer and dancer, the only impediment to his physical perfection was, when the least excited, a hesitancy of speech—almost a stammer. Finally he turned and walked back to me, saying,—
“Now, Ad, if you will agree to a proposition I have to offer, I will disprove your assertion, so oft repeated, that I never loved—not even that dear girl, Jenny Kingsbury.”
“First let me hear your proposition.”
“You have long desired to visit Bangor?”
“Yes,” I replied.
“Let us harness ‘Simon’ early some fine morning for that delightful city; go by the way of B. and O., stop and see Jenny, who I have learned by roundabout inquiry resides with her aunt in the latter place. And,” he added, triumphantly, “see for yourself if she isn’t a girl to be loved.”
“O, no doubt Jenny Kingsbury ‘is a girl to be loved;’ so was Addie, and so was ’Ria, and a dozen others, whom you have sworn you loved so devotedly. O George, out upon your affections.”
“Will—will—you go? That’s the question.”
“Yes—I will go—because I wish to visit Bangor very much,” was my reply; and the time was at once set for the journey, which was to occupy two days.