A beautiful young gentleman he chanced to pass that way;
She cast her eyes upon him, and he looked so good and true,
That she thought, “I could be happy with a gentleman like you!”
And every morning passed her house that cream of gentlemen;
She knew she might expect him at a quarter unto ten,
A sorter in the Custom House it was his daily road
(The Custom House was fifteen minutes’ walk from her abode).
But Alice was a pious girl and knew it was not wise
To look at strange young sorters with expressive purple eyes,
So she sought the village priest to whom her family confessed—