First, however, I would know something definite of his family as they were then, and so, as a Mr.Morris, who wished to purchase a country seat, I went to Snowdon, and after some inquiries in the village, forced my way to Terrace Hill.

The lady listening to me was the only one I saw, and I felt sure she at least would be kind to Adah.

On my return to New York, I urged the marriage more pertinaciously than at first, saying, by way of excusing myself, that as I was only Adah's guardian, I could not, of course, feel toward her as a near relative would feel--that as I had already expended large sums of money on her, I was getting tired of it, and would be glad to be released, hinting, by way of smoothing the fiendish proposition, my belief that, from constant association, he would come to love her so much that at last he would really and truly make her his wife.

He did hesitate--he did seem shocked, and if I remember rightly, called me a brute, an unnatural guardian, and all that; but little by little I gained ground, until at last he consented, and I hurried the matter at once, lest he should repent.
"I had an acquaintance, I said, who lived a few miles from the city--a man who, for money, would do anything, and who, as a feigned justice of the peace, would go through with the ceremony, and ever after keep his own counsel.

I wonder the doctor did not make some inquiries concerning this so-called justice, but I think I am right in saying that he is not remarkably clear-headed, and this weakness saved me much trouble, and after a long time I arranged the matter with my friend, who was a lawful justice, staying with his brother, at that time absent in Europe.