While she had promised to marry me, still there was a coldness, perhaps I should say a calmness, in her manner toward me, and a cautiousness in holding me aloof which seemed to indicate a desire on her part for a better establishment in life than I could give, if perchance a better offered.

My suit had not prospered, though it had not failed, since she was to be my wife provided she found no more eligible husband within a reasonable time.
Dangling blunts the edge of ardor; therefore I soon found myself noticing beauty elsewhere and discovered none that could be compared with that of Betty Pickering of the Old Swan.

It is true she was, in a sense, a barmaid, and equally true that I had no thought of marrying her.

Still it was significant even at that early time that my mind reverted to the fact that Edward Hyde, Lord Chancellor of England and Earl of Clarendon, had married an innkeeper's widow, whose daughter became the mother of two queens.
While this was true, still I respected Betty less than I admired her and far less than she deserved, never entirely forgetting her station in life nor ceasing to recognize the great distance between us.
When I entered the Old Swan, Betty greeted me with a smile amid a nest of dimples, and led me upstairs to her parlor, so that we might talk without being overheard.

I sat down on a settle, and Betty took her place beside me.