Yet an acute friend of mine gave a more harmless, or at least a less offensive, construction to his attentions, which he conceived to be meant for my daughter Julia, though immediately addressed to propitiate the influence of her mother.

This could have been no very flattering or pleasing enterprise on the part of an obscure and nameless young man; but I should not have been offended at this folly as I was at the higher degree of presumption I suspected.

Offended, however, I was, and in a mortal degree.
'A very slight spark will kindle a flame where everything lies open to catch it.

I have absolutely forgot the proximate cause of quarrel, but it was some trifle which occurred at the card-table which occasioned high words and a challenge.

We met in the morning beyond the walls and esplanade of the fortress which I then commanded, on the frontiers of the settlement.