cheerful and happy.

_Sir W._ True--but it isn't _that_--that is, not altogether so: no, 'tis
that I once more hold my friend Falkner by the hand, and that my
daughter--you remember your little favourite Helen--

_Falkner._ I do indeed!

_Sir W._ You are arrived at a critical moment: I mean shortly to marry
her--

_Falkner._ I forbid the banns!

_Sir W._ The devil you do!

_Falkner._ Pshaw! (_aside_) my feelings o'erstep my discretion. Take
care what you're about--If you're an honest man, you'd rather see her
dead than married to a villain.

_Sir W._ To be sure I would; but the man I mean her to marry--

_Falkner._ Perhaps will never be her husband.

_Sir W._ The devil he wont! why not?

_Falkner._ Talk of something else--you know I was always an eccentric
being--

_Sir W._ What the devil does he mean? yes, yes you was always eccentric;
but do you know--

_Falkner._ I know more than I wish to know; I've lived long enough in
the world to know that roguery fattens on the same soil where honesty
starves; and I care little whether time adds to information which opens
to me more and more the depravity of human nature.

_Sir W._ Why, Falkner, you are grown more a misanthrope than ever.

_Falkner._ You know well enough I have had my vexations in life; in an
early stage of it I married--

_Sir W._ Every man has his trials!

_Falkner._ About two years afterwards I lost my wife.

_Sir W._ That was a heavy misfortune! however you bore it with
fortitude.

_Falkner._ I bore it easily; my wife was a woman without feelings: she
had not energy for great virtue, and she had no vice, because she had no
passion: life with her was a state of stagnation.

_Sir W._ How different are the fates of men!

_Falkner._ In the next instance, I had a friend whom I would have
trusted with my life--with more--my honour--I need not tell you then I
thought him the first of human beings; but I was mistaken--he understood
my character no better than I knew his: he confided to me a transaction
which proved him to be a villain, and I commanded him never to see me
more.

_Sir W._ Bless me! what was that transaction?

_Falkner._ It was a secret, and has remained so. Though I should have
liked to hang the fellow, he had trusted me, and no living creature but
himself and me at this day is possessed of it.

_Sir W._ Strange indeed; and what became of him.

_Falkner._ I have not seen him since, but I shall see him in a few
hours.