wn tastes. It is said, I don't know with what truth, that at Ouch,
or Interlachen, or some other of the most mundane and banal resorts of
the tourists, he came upon one girl who he thought might make him a
suitable wife: and that, though with much moderation and prudence, he
more or less followed her party for some time, meeting them over and
over again, with expressions of astonishment, round the most well-known
corners, and persisting for a considerable time in this quest. But
whether he ever came the length of proposing at all, or whether the
young lady was engaged beforehand, or if she thought the prospect of
making a suitable wife not good enough, I cannot say, and I doubt
whether any one knows--except, of course, the parties immediately
concerned. It is very clear, at all events, that it came to nothing.
John did not altogether give it up, I fancy, for he went a great deal
into society still, especially in that _avant saison_, which people who
live in London declare to be the most enjoyable, and when it is supposed
you can enjoy the best of company at your ease without the hurry and
rush of the summer crowd. He would have been very glad, thankful,
indeed, if he could have fallen in love. How absurd to think that any
silly boy can do it, to whom it is probably nothing but a disadvantage
and the silliest of pastimes, and that he, a reasonable man with a good
income, and arrived at a time of life when it is becoming and rational
to marry, could not do it, let him try as he would! There was something
ludicrous in it, when you came to think, as well as something very
depressing. Mothers who wanted a good position for their daughters
divined him, and many of them were exceedingly civil to John, this man
in search of a wife; and many of the young ladies themselves divined
him, and with the half indignation, half mockery, appropriate to the
situation, were some of them not unaverse to profit by it, and
accordingly turned to him their worst side in the self-consciousness
produced by that knowledge. And thus the second year turned round
towards the wane, and John was farther from success than ever.

He said to himself then that it was clear he was not a marrying man. He
liked the society of ladies well enough, but not in that way. He was
not made for falling in love. He might very well, he was aware, have
dispensed with the tradition, and found an excellent wife, who would not
at all have insisted upon it from her side. But