I HAD spoken confidently enough, while arguing the question of Doctor Dulcifer's respectability with the Treasurer of the D uskydale Institution; but, if my perceptions had not been blinded by my enthusiastic admiration for Alicia, I think I should have secretly distrusted my own opinion as soon as I was left by myself.

Had I been in full possession of my senses, I might have questioned, on reflection, whether the doctor's method of accounting for the suspicions which kept his neighbors aloof from him, was quite satisfactory.

Love is generally described, I believe, as the tender passion.

When I remember the insidiously relaxing effect of it on all my faculties, I feel inclined to alter the popular definition, and to call it a moral vapor-bath.
What the Managing Committee of the Duskydale Institution thought of the change in me, I cannot imagine.

The doctor and his daughter left the town on the day they had originally appointed, before I could make any excuse for calling again; and, as a necessary consequence of their departure, I lost all interest in the affairs of the ball, and yawned in the faces of the committee when I was obliged to be present at their deliberations in my official capacity.
It was all Alicia with me, whatever they did.