ill passably fill an
office which, between ourselves, he has for some time expected.
I hope to return the day after to-morrow, and to receive the
blushing answer on which I have set my heart.--Believe me, dear
Coz, your affectionate

"Sol. Hymen."

Cynics tell us that one-half of the proposals of marriage made by men
are the direct result of pique. How closely this proposal of the
Major's coincided with the recoil of his public humiliation I do not
pretend to determine. Certain it is that he had no sooner written
and sealed his letter than the shadow of a doubt began to creep over
his hot fit.

He started up, lit his long pipe, and fell to pacing the room with
agitated strides. Was he doing wisely? Matrimony, he had sometimes
told his friends, is like a dip in the sea; the wise man takes it at
a plunge, head first. Yes, yes; but had he given it quite sufficient
reflection? Could he promise himself he would never regret? He was
not doubting that Miss Marty would make him an excellent wife.
Admirable creature, she bore every test he could apply. She was
gentle, companionable, intelligent in converse, yet never forward in
giving an opinion; too studious, rather, to efface herself; in
household management economical without being penurious; a notable
cook and needlewoman; in person by no means uncomely, and in mind as
well as person so scrupulously neat that her unobtrusive presence,
her noiseless circumspect flittings from room to room, exhaled an
atmosphere of daintiness in which it was good to dwell. No, he had
no anxiety about Miss Marty. But could he be sure of himself?
Had he really and truly and for ever put the ambitions of public life
behind him? Might they not some day re-awaken as this present wound
healed and ceased to smart?

If he sent this letter, he had burnt his boats. He halted before the
table and stood for a while considering; stood there so long that his
pipe went out unheeded. Ought he not to re-write his proposal and
word it so as to leave himself a loophole? As he conned the name on
the address, by some trick of memory he found himself repeating Miss
Marty's own protest against the Millennium: "Why couldn't we be let
alone, to go on comfortably?"

Confound the Millennium! Was it at the bottom of this too?
The plaguy thing had a knack of intruding itself, just now, into all
he undertook, and always mischievously.