h his wife to put two babies to sleep. This occupies
them, I should say, usually an hour, though my only measure of time
(for I never carry a watch into the country) is the blaze of my fire.
By ten, or thereabouts, my stock of wood is nearly exhausted; I pile
upon the hot coals what remains, and sit watching how it kindles, and
blazes, and goes out---even like our joys--and then slip by the light
of the embers into my bed, where I luxuriate in such sound and
healthful slumber as only such rattling window-frames and country air
can supply.

But to return: the other evening--it happened to be on my last visit to
my farmhouse--when I had exhausted all the ordinary rural topics of
thought, had formed all sorts of conjectures as to the income of the
year; had planned a new wall around one lot, and the clearing up of
another, now covered with patriarchal wood; and wondered if the little
rickety house would not be after all a snug enough box to live and to
die in--I fell on a sudden into such an unprecedented line of thought,
which took such deep hold of my sympathies--sometimes even starting
tears--that I determined, the next day, to set as much of it as I could
recall on paper.

Something--it may have been the home-looking blaze (I am a bachelor of,
say, six-and-twenty), or possibly a plaintive cry of the baby in my
tenant's room, had suggested to me the thought of--marriage.

I piled upon the heated fire-dogs the last armful of my wood; "and
now," said I, bracing myself courageously between the arms of my chair,
"I'll not flinch; I'll pursue the thought wherever it leads, though it
leads me to the d--(I am apt to be hasty)--at least," continued I,
softening, "until my fire is out."

The wood was green, and at first showed no disposition to blaze. It
smoked furiously. Smoke, thought I, always goes before blaze; and so
does doubt go before decision: and my reverie, from that very
starting-point, slipped into this shape:

I. SMOKE--SIGNIFYING DOUBT

A wife? thought I. Yes, a wife.

And why?

And pray, my dear sir, why not--why? Why not doubt? why not hesitate;
why not tremble?

Does a man buy a ticket in a lottery--a poor man whose whole earnings
go in to secure the ticket--without trembling, hesitating, and doubting?

Can a man stake his bachelor respectability, his independence, and
comfort, upon the die of absorbing, unchanging, relentless marriage,
without trembling at the venture?

Shall a man who