or the release of
Henry from prison. At my solicitation a friend of mine wrote to
Trenton to Henry's mother to come on to New York, and meet me at the
Metropolitan Hotel on a specified day, to transact some business. She
came, and we met for the first time in several years. We met now simply
on business, and there was no expression of sentiment or feeling on
either side. We cared nothing for each other. I commended her for her
devotion to Henry, and then told her I believed, if the proper efforts
were made, he could be pardoned out of prison. I told her what lawyer
and other persons to see, and how to proceed in the matter. I gave her
the most minute instructions, and then handed her five hundred dollars
with which to fee her lawyer, and to pay her and her daughter's living
expenses in Trenton. She was grateful for the money, and was only too
glad to go to work for Henry; she would have done it long ago if she had
only known what to do. We then parted, and I have never seen the woman,
since that day.

This business transacted, I at once returned to my practice at
Biddeford. Among my patients was a wealthy widow, "fat, fair, and
forty," and I had not attended her long before a warm affection sprung
up between us, and in time, when the widow recovered, we began to think
we were in love with each other. I confess that I agreed to marry
her; but it was to be at some distant day--a very distant day as I
intended--for, strange as it may seem, and as it did seem to me, I had
at last learned the lesson that I had better let matrimony alone. I had
married too many wives, widows, milliners, and what not, already,
and had suffered too severely for so doing. I meant that my Vermont
imprisonment, the worst of all, should be the last.

So I only "courted" the widow, calling upon her almost every day, and
I was received and presented to her acquaintances as her affianced
husband. Her family and immediate friends were violently opposed to the
match, thereby showing their good sense. I was also informed that they
knew something of my previous history, and I was warned that I had
better not undertake to marry the widow. Bless their innocent hearts! I
had no idea of doing it. I was daily amazed at my own common sense. My
memory was active now; all my matrimonial mishaps of the past, with all
the consequences, were ever present to my mind, and never more present
than when was in the company of the fascinating widow. As for her,
the more