_For the Table Book._
I knew a man that went courting his sweetheart the distance of three
miles every evening for fourteen years, besides dodging her home after
church, Sunday afternoons; making above 15,000 miles. For the first
seven years he only stood and courted in the door-porch; but for the
remaining period, he ventured (what a liberty after a septennial
attachment!) to hang his hat on a pin in the passage and sit in the
kitchen settle. The wedding--a consummation devoutly to be wished--was
solemnized when Robert and Hannah were in their “sear and yellow leaf.”
They had no family “to cry their fading charms into the grave.” Though
their courtship had been long, cool, and deliberate, they were not the
happiest couple in the village; to that union of temper, which is so
essential in wedded life, they were strangers.
*, *, P.
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