She
was much interested, inquired into the particulars, and finally
thought the plan would be a favorable one for her husband. She asked
me to go with her to see him, and said that if he was in condition
to travel he should go about with me if he would; at any rate, if he
came out of the Asylum she would put him under my care. We went
together to Brattleboro, and the very day we arrived her husband was
taken in an apoplectic fit from which he did not recover. She
carried home his corpse, and I lost my expected patient.
But I must have something to do for my daily support, and so I went
to work and very soon sold some medicines and recipes, and secured a
few patients. I also visited the adjoining villages, and in a few
weeks I had a very good practice. I might have lived here quietly
and made money. Nobody knew anything of my former history, my
marriages or my misfortunes, and I was doing well, with a daily
increasing business. And so I went on for nearly three months,
gaining new acquaintances, and extending my practice every day.
Then came the old tempter in a new form, and my matrimonial
monomania, which I hoped was cured forever, broke out afresh. One
day, at the public house where I lived, I saw a fine girl from New
Hampshire, with whom I became acquainted--so easily, so far as she
was concerned--that I ought to have been warned to have nothing to
do with her; but, as usual, in such cases, my common sense left me,
and I was infatuated enough to fancy that I was in love.
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