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 in the village, and there could be no doubt that she sung better than her sister—but the idea of his falling in love! Too absurd! and so instead of walking boldly up to the singers with the other gentlemen, he coasted round the room, took a survey of the pictures on the wall, and the books on the table, and so finally landed at the pianoforte, having, as he hoped, proved to himself and the bystanders that it was the last place in the apartment which presented any attraction to him.

Poor Greydon! when he went home that evening to his small room over the grocer's shop, where the one-eyed awkward shop-girl had forgotten to place his candles, and had carefully closed his windows to ensure a due amount of fustiness; where the furniture looked dusty, and where everything proclaimed "cheap lodgings for a single man without encumbrances," he sat down in a disconsolate state of mind. He longed for "encumbrances," he despised single men and cheap lodgings, he wished for a living; and