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Jack.
    â€œOh!” said I.
    â€œYes,” said he.
    â€œAn engagement, too!”
    â€œAn engagement? I should think so — and a double-barrelled one, too. An engagement — why, my dear fellow, an engagement’s nothing at all compared with this. This is some thing infinitely worse than the affair with Louie, or Miss Phillips, or even the widow. It’s a bad case — yes — an infernally bad case — and I don’t see but that I’ll have to throw up the widow after all.”
    â€œIt must be a bad case, if it’s infinitely worse than an engagement, as you say is. Why, man, it must be nothing less than actual marriage. Is that what you’re driving at? It must be. So you’re a married man, are you?”
    â€œNo, not just that, not quite — as yet — but the very next thing to it.”
    â€œWell, Jack, I’m sorry for you, and all that I can say is, that it is a pity that this isn’t Utah. Being Canada, however, and a civilized country, I can’t see for the life of me how you’ll ever manage to pull through.”
    Jack sighed dolefully.
    â€œTo tell the truth,” said he, “it’s this last one that gives me my only trouble. I’d marry the widow, settle up some way with Miss Phillips, smother my shame, and pass the remainder of my life in peaceful obscurity, if it were not for her.”
    â€œYou mean by her, the lady whose name you don’t mention.”
    â€œWhose name I don’t mention, nor intend to,” said Jack, gravely. “Her case is so peculiar that it cannot be classed with the others. I never breathed a word about it to anybody, though it’s been going on for six or eight months.”
    Jack spoke with such earnestness that I perceived the subject to be too grave a one in his estimation to be trifled with. A frown came over his face, and he once more eased his mind by sending forth heavy clouds of smoke, as though he would thus throw off the clouds of melancholy that had gathered deep and dark over his soul.
    â€œI’ll make a clean breast of it, old chap,” said he, at length, with a very heavy sigh. “It’s a bad business from beginning to end.”
    â€œYou see,” said he, after a long pause, in which he seemed to be collecting his thoughts — “it began last year — the time I went to New York, you know. She went on at the same time. She had nobody with her but a deaf old party, and got into some row at the station about her luggage. I helped her out of it, and sat by her side all the way. At New York I kept up the acquaintance. I came back with them, that is to say, with her, and the deaf old party, you know, and by the time we reached Quebec again we understood one another.
    â€œI couldn’t help it — I’ll be hanged if I could! You see, Macrorie, it wasn’t an ordinary case. She was the loveliest little girl I ever saw, and I found myself awfully fond of her in no time. I soon saw that she was fond of me too. All my other affairs were a joke to this. I wanted to marry her in New York, but the thought of my debts frightened me out of that, and so I put it off. I half wish now I hadn’t been so confoundedly prudent. Perhaps it is best, though. Still, I don’t know. Better be the wife of a poor devil, than have one’s heart broken by a mean devil. Heigho!”
    HEIGHO are the letters which are usually employed to represent a sigh. I use them in accordance with the customs of the literary world.
    â€œWell,” resumed Jack, “after my return I called on her, and repeated my call several times. She was all that could be desired, but her father was different. I found him rather chilly, and not at all inclined to receive me with that joyous hospitality which my various merits deserved. The young lady herself seemed sad. I found out, at last, that the old gentleman amused himself with badgering her about me; and finally she