In my first description of the company in which I pass most of my time,
it may be remembered that I mentioned a great affliction which my friend
Sir ROGER had met with in his youth; which was no less than a
disappointment in love. It happened this evening that we fell into a
very pleasing walk at a distance from his house: As soon as we came into
it, 'It is,' quoth the good old man, looking round him with a smile,
'very hard, that any part of my land should be settled upon one who has
used me so ill as the perverse widow did; and yet I am sure I could not
see a sprig of any bough of this whole walk of trees, but I should
reflect upon her and her severity. She has certainly the finest hand of
any woman in the world. You are to know this was the place wherein I
used to muse upon her; and by that custom I can never come into it, but
the same tender sentiments revive in my mind, as if I had actually
walked with that beautiful creature under these shades. I have been fool
enough to carve her name on the bark of several of these trees; so
unhappy is the condition of men in love, to attempt the removing of
their passions by the methods which serve only to imprint it deeper. She
has certainly the finest hand of any woman in the world.'

Here followed a profound silence; and I was not displeased to observe my
friend falling so naturally into a discourse, which I had ever before
taken notice he industriously avoided. After a very long pause he
entered upon an account of this great circumstance in his life, with an
air which I thought raised my idea of him above what I had ever had
before; and gave me the picture of that cheerful mind of his, before it
received that stroke which has ever since affected his words and
actions. But he went on as follows.

'I came to my estate in my twenty-second year, and resolved to follow
the steps of the most worthy of my ancestors who have inhabited this