Page:An authentic narrative of the extraordinary career of James Allen, the female husband.djvu/16

 period is uncertain; he must, however, have been very young, because he had but just turned his 17th year when he left Mr. Munroe's service to engage in that of Mr. Ward's.—And here it is a subject worthy of reflection, as to the motives which could have influenced one so young to have come to so singular and strange a determination as that of concealing her own sex by assuming that of the male; since the difficulties attending such a step, must at all times and in every respect, have been infinitely more so to one rendered inadequate to the performance of its numerous and exclusive labours by nature and custom. The first design of such a measure must have been the production of a mind naturally romantic; but to put into execution such an idea, strongly argues a deeply-rooted reason,—what that was, must in all probability for ever remain a secret.

Abigail Naylor had not been at Margate more than six months when she received a most pressing letter from James, desiring her to come to London, and seal by marriage the vows of eternal love which had been so long and so reciprocally pledged to each other. Accordingly, having obtained permission from her mistress to visit London on particular business for a period of three days, she arrived on the 12th December, 1807. James met her by appointment, and from him she learned that the banns had been duly proclaimed in the parish church of St. Giles, Camberwell, and that he had arranged that the marriage ceremony should take place on the following day, well knowing that her stay from her situation would necessarily be prescribed. The evening preceding their marriage was passed in discoursing on their future plans of living, and providing for each other. What James's feelings were upon the eve of so solemn and important a ceremony, knowing the great deception he was