e,
there, is inimitable! a type of childlike grace peculiarly his own,'
etc. I'll lend you the article."

LIONEL.--"And shall we never again see the original darling Sophy? You
will laugh, Vance, but I have been heartproof against all young ladies.
If ever I marry, my wife must have Sophy's eyes! In America!"

VANCE.--"Let us hope by this time happily married to a Yankee! Yankees
marry girls in their teens, and don't ask for dowries. Married to a
Yankee! not a doubt of it! a Yankee who thaws, whittles, and keeps a
'store'!"

LIONEL.--"Monster! Hold your tongue. _A propos_ of marriage, why are you
still single?"

VANCE.--"Because I have no wish to be doubled up! Moreover, man is like
a napkin, the more neatly the housewife doubles him, the more carefully
she lays him on the shelf. Neither can a man once doubled know how often
he may be doubled. Not only his wife folds him in two, but every child
quarters him into a new double, till what was a wide and handsome
substance, large enough for anything in reason, dwindles into a pitiful
square that will not cover one platter,--all puckers and creases,
smaller and smaller with every double, with every double a new crease.
Then, my friend, comes the washing-bill! and, besides all the hurts
one receives in the mangle, consider the hourly wear and tear of the
linen-press! In short, Shakspeare vindicates the single life, and
depicts the double in the famous line, which is no doubt intended to be
allegorical of marriage,

"'Double, double, toil and trouble.'

Besides, no single man can be fairly called poor. What double man can
with certainty be called rich? A single man can lodge in a garret, and
dine on a herring: nobody knows; nobody cares. Let him marry, and he
invites the world to witness where he lodges, and how he dines. The
first necessary a wife demands is the most ruinous, the most indefinite
superfluity; it is Gentility according to what her neighbours call
genteel. Gentility commences with the honeymoon; it is its shadow, and
lengthens as the moon declines. When the honey is all gone, your bride
says, 'We can have our tea without sugar when quite alone, love; but,
in case Gentility drop in, here's a bill for silver sugar-tongs!' That's
why I'm single."

"Economy again, Vance."

"Prudence,--dignity," answered Vance, seriously; and sinking into a
revery that seemed gloomy, he shot back to shore.

CHAPTER II.

Mr. Vance explains how he came