he road! Bless us
all,' said I, as if I had been surprised, 'how can you talk so?' 'Oh,
I can talk so very well,' says he, 'I came a-purpose to talk so, and
I'll show you that I did'; and with that he pulls out a great bundle of
papers. 'You fright me,' said I; 'what are all these?' 'Don't be
frighted, my dear,' said he, and kissed me. This was the first time
that he had been so free to call me 'my dear'; then he repeated it,
'Don't be frighted; you shall see what it is all'; then he laid them
all abroad. There was first the deed or sentence of divorce from his
wife, and the full evidence of her playing the whore; then there were
the certificates of the minister and churchwardens of the parish where
she lived, proving that she was buried, and intimating the manner of
her death; the copy of the coroner's warrant for a jury to sit upon
her, and the verdict of the jury, who brought it in Non compos mentis.
All this was indeed to the purpose, and to give me satisfaction,
though, by the way, I was not so scrupulous, had he known all, but that
I might have taken him without it. However, I looked them all over as
well as I could, and told him that this was all very clear indeed, but
that he need not have given himself the trouble to have brought them
out with him, for it was time enough. Well, he said, it might be time
enough for me, but no time but the present time was time enough for him.

There were other papers rolled up, and I asked him what they were.
'Why, ay,' says he, 'that's the question I wanted to have you ask me';
so he unrolls them and takes out a little shagreen case, and gives me
out of it a very fine diamond ring. I could not refuse it, if I had a
mind to do so, for he put it upon my finger; so I made him a curtsy and
accepted it. Then he takes out another ring: 'And this,' says he, 'is
for another occasion,' so he puts that in his pocket. 'Well, but let
me see it, though,' says I, and smiled; 'I guess what it is; I think
you are mad.' 'I should have been mad if I had done less,' says he, and
still he did not show me, and I had a great mind to see it; so I says,
'Well, but let me see it.' 'Hold,' says he, 'first look here'; then he
took up the roll again and read it, and behold! it was a licence for us
to be married. 'Why,' says I, 'are you distracted? Why, you were
fully satisfied that I would comply and yield at first word, or
resolved to take no denial.' 'The last is certainly the case,' said