" He frowned a
little, as if he thought my sympathy a trifle meagre. I shook him by the
hand and laughed. "The pearl of wisdom," I cried, "is love; honest love
in the most convenient concentration of experience! I advise you to fall
in love." He gave me no smile in response, but drew from his pocket the
letter of which I have spoken, held it up, and shook it solemnly. "What
is it?" I asked.
"It is my sentence!"
"Not of death, I hope!"
"Of marriage."
"With whom?"
"With a person I don't love."
This was serious. I stopped smiling, and begged him to explain.
"It is the singular part of my story," he said at last. "It will remind
you of an old-fashioned romance. Such as I sit here, talking in this
wild way, and tossing off provocations to destiny, my destiny is settled
and sealed. I am engaged, I am given in marriage. It's a bequest of the
past--the past I had no hand in! The marriage was arranged by my father,
years ago, when I was a boy. The young girl's father was his particular
friend; he was also a widower, and was bringing up his daughter, on his
side, in the same severe seclusion in which I was spending my days. To
this day I am unacquainted with the origin of the bond of union between
our respective progenitors.
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