"What do you mean?"
"Why, have you not heard of their engagement?"
"Engagement!"
"Yes, it has been a short acquaintance. Indeed, Bob, now that it recurs to my mind, I heard that she sent you out of the way, into the country on business, that the Judge might not be alarmed by the appearance of a rival. But you know that villagers are famous for gossip. Of course there was nothing in it. And I said, you never had a serious thought about her."
Was ever anything like this? Before the shoes were old with which she followed my poor father's body. While the Biography of her deceased husband was in progress, she forms an engagement with a man of no sort of personal attractions, and who, being on the bench, can have his legal decisions confuted by a young lawyer.
Surely the most strict moralist would confess, that I was released from my engagements! Surely Sir Charles Grandison would have said, that I need not put myself forward for an explanation with the widow. If she spoke to me on the subject, could I not say, "Let the Judge write the book?"
These notes have not been written in vain, if I can contribute, in the least degree, to the awakening of the public mind to a demand for greater moral principles, in the composition of histories, and of the memoirs of distinguished men.
I thought that the widow might send me a note, before many days had passed. I waited, and concluded in a Christian spirit, that if she applied to me, she should have the notes which I had accumulated. But I never heard again of my first attempt at writing a memoir. I never heard again of Dr. Bolton's Biography.