BOOK III
HANNAH
XXVII
AMY BELDEN
"A merrier man
Within the limits of becoming mirth,
I never spent an hour's talk withal."
Love's Labour's Lost.
I HAD a client in R by the name of Monell; and it was from him I had planned to learn the best way of approaching Mrs. Belden. When, therefore, I was so fortunate as to meet him, almost on my arrival, driving on the long road behind his famous trotter Alfred, I regarded the encounter as a most auspicious beginning of a very doubtful enterprise.
"Well, and how goes the day?" was his exclamation as, the first greetings passed, we drove rapidly into town.
"Your part in it goes pretty smoothly," I returned; and thinking I could never hope to win his attention to my own affairs till I had satisfied him in regard to his, I told him all I could concerning the law-suit then pending; a subject so prolific of question and answer, that we had driven twice round the town before he remembered he had a letter to post. As it
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