feel when she is making her wedding-clothes for the second time and for
another man? I know very well how the other man feels. Upon my urging
Georgiana to marry me at once--nature does not recognize engagements;
they are a device of civilization--she protested:

"But I must get ready! Think of the sewing!"

"Oh, bother!" I grumbled. "Where are all those clothes that you made
last year?"

How was I to suppose that Georgiana must have everything made over as
part of her feeling for me? I would not decree it otherwise; yet I
question whether this delicacy may not impose reciprocal obligations,
and remove from my life certain elements of abiding comfort. What if
it should engender a prejudice against my own time-worn
acquaintances--the familiars of my fireside? It might be justifiable
sagacity in me to keep them locked up for the first year or so after
Georgiana and I become a diune being; and, upon the whole, she should
never know what may have been the premarital shortcomings of my
wardrobe as respects things unseen. No matter how well a bachelor may
appear dressed, there is no telling what he conceals upon his person.
I feel sure that the retrospective discovery of a ravelling would
somehow displease Georgiana as a feature of our courtship. Nature is
very stringent here, very guarded, truly universal. Invariably the
young men of my day grow lavish in the use of unguents when they are
preparing for natural selection; and I flatter myself that even my own
garments--in their superficial aspects at least, and during my long
pursuit of Georgiana--have not been very far from somewhat slightly
ingratiating.

This pursuit is now drawing to a close. It is nearly the last of June.
She has given me her word that she will marry me early in September.
Two months for her to get the bridal feathers ready; two for me to
prepare the nest.

II

I have forgotten nature. I barely know that July, now nearly gone, has
passed, sifted with sweetness and ablaze with light. Time has swept
on, the world run round; but I have stood motionless, abiding the hour
of my marriage as a tree the season of its leaves. For all that it
looks so calm, within goes on a tremendous surging of sap against its
moments of efflorescence.

After which I pray that, not as a tree, but as a man, I may have a
little peace. When Georgiana confessed her love, I had supposed this
confession to mark the end of her elusiveness. When later on she
pre