My courtship with Urseline Ascomy was too important to be cursorily passed over. It is manifest, by what has been stated in the preceding chapter, that the romance of life was then becoming a little flat and stale with me, and that increasing years, and decreasing means, were prompting to economical expedients; but my native candour would not suffer me to equivocate towards the woman whom I thought would make a suitable wife to my circumstances; and accordingly, I honestly told her, when I solicited the favour of paying my addresses, that we had both too many nicks in our horns to be pastoral in our love, without running the risk of being foolish. She quite as frankly assured me that she thought so too.

“But, Bogle Corbet,” said she, “for the sake of a family custom, I must tell my father, and when you obtain his consent, which I can encourage you by saying will not be refused, the time and place will be at our own choosing.”

I seriously confess that I was not prepared for such plain dealing. I did expect a little more maidenly affectation; but replied, after a sentence or two, “that friends should not stand on ceremony to each other.”