eflection it occurred
to me that she might have been prevailed on by her married sister to
come without anything concerning me ever having been mentioned to her,
and so I concluded that if no other objection presented itself, I would
consent to waive this. All this occurred to me on hearing of her arrival
in the neighborhood--for, be it remembered, I had not yet seen her,
except about three years previous, as above mentioned. In a few days we
had an interview, and, although I had seen her before, she did not look
as my imagination had pictured her. I knew she was over-size, but she
now appeared a fair match for Falstaff. I knew she was called an
"old maid," and I felt no doubt of the truth of at least half of the
appellation, but now, when I beheld her, I could not for my life avoid
thinking of my mother; and this, not from withered features,--for
her skin was too full of fat to permit of its contracting into
wrinkles,--but from her want of teeth, weather-beaten appearance in
general, and from a kind of notion that ran in my head that nothing
could have commenced at the size of infancy and reached her present bulk
in less than thirty-five or forty years; and in short, I was not at
all pleased with her. But what could I do? I had told her sister that I
would take her for better or for worse, and I made a point of honor and
conscience in all things to stick to my word especially if others had
been induced to act on it which in this case I had no doubt they had,
for I was now fairly convinced that no other man on earth would have
her, and hence the conclusion that they were bent on holding me to my
bargain.

"Well," thought I, "I have said it, and, be the consequences what they
may, it shall not be my fault if I fail to do it." At once I determined
to consider her my wife; and, this done, all my powers of discovery were
put to work in search of perfections in her which might be fairly set
off against her defects. I tried to imagine her handsome, which, but
for her unfortunate corpulency, was actually true. Exclusive of this no
woman that I have ever seen has a finer face. I also tried to convince
myself that the mind was much more to be valued than the person; and in
this she was not inferior, as I could discover, to any with whom I had
been acquainted.

Shortly after this, without coming to any positive understanding with
her, I set out for Vandalia, when and where you first saw me. During
my stay there I had letters fr