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Book II.
Being now somewhat advanced in life, I can look back on the past with that degree of calmness and self-complacency so delightful to age. I cannot think, with Miss Landon, that a person regards the follies of his youth with more severity himself than others regard them. Indeed I feel disposed to believe that those very follies form the chief charm of our early days; and, as for myself, I can hardly regret that I was not born a Nestor. So much by way of preface to my Second Book.
The reader who has been kind enough to follow me thus far in the history of my youth, will recollect that I introduced him to a social circle at Mrs. Melville’s, one evening in the early part of summer.
Mr. Martagon, the gentleman with the large shoulders, was seated in an arm-chair, admirably adapted to his proportions. Mr. Pratt was looking unutterable things at Miss Azile, who, on the present occasion, was exceedingly unmerciful on love-stricken swains. Miss Emily Melville was warbling a soft enchanting air, which she accompanied with the guitar; and Mr. Desmond was wrapt in pleasing thoughts, the consequence thereof. Mr. Martagon being an ancient admirer of Miss Virginia Melville, enlisted her attention by a very judicious discourse on the evils of matrimony; which, of course, induced me to be very busily engaged at nothing particular.
When the music had ceased, the conversation gradually became general. Poetry was discussed—fiction voted a great evil—superstition allowed to be a universal failing—and Sir Walter Scott pronounced the king of ghost-makers; which latter allusion led to a very edifying description of the person and character of a certain ghost seen by each individual present.
Mr. Martagon, who had seen an unusual and pleasing variety of ghosts, recollected an uncommonly peculiar one which appeared to him during a twilight ramble in the woods.
This reminded Mr. Pratt of an extraordinary vision which he had once witnessed in the form of a hog; which prompted Mr. Desmond to relate an amusing anecdote of his experience in things supernatural.
Various ghost-stories were related by the company, till, by one of those unaccountable changes which so frequently occur in a lively circle, the conversation turned to love and courtship. This was a subject upon which I was very sensitive.