Page:Far from the Maddening Girls.djvu/196

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his purely material faculties. My appetite vanished like the flame of a candle under a wet sponge; and as for any desire for sleep, I would have made the most efficient night-watchman in existence. I did not fall into the dismal custom of writing verse; and the isolation of my life secured me against the crowning folly of discoursing to my friends on the key of tit-willow and alackaday; but in all other respects I suppose mine was as typical a case of love-sickness as you would be apt to find.

Your practised poultryman will tell you which eggs will hatch and which will not, and it is probably by some such occult faculty as this that the average woman is able to detect the incubation of the tender passion. As I look back, I perceive that Galvin must have been fully aware of my condition, and that she encouraged it to the full extent of her ability, though at the time I could think of no reason for the persistent manner in which she forced the subject of matrimony upon my attention.