Every day, and almost every hour of every day, convinced me that it was not amongst “the good society” of the royal borough I was to find a quiet evening. It might be, that my habits were not in unison with those of “the better class” of the inhabitants: but I now discovered there was a more primitive cause;—I had neither been born nor bred a gentleman, as the laird of the house with the lonely lum remarked to his associates.

The worthy gentlefolks were very thankful for the dance-offering which I was worked upon to give, under the directions of Miss Beeny Needles, to appease their alleged indignant delicacy; and they would, with equal gratitude, have sung “Oh, be joyful!” had I done as much for them every month; but I could perceive there was some scruple amongst the gentlemen, especially those of the pedigree order, whether I ought to be admitted into their fraternities on an equal footing; so I buttoned my pocket, and began to urge a little more particularly, in the course of my courting with Mrs. Greenknowe, the advantage of returning to America, where my property and all my best interests lay. Her consent to this I had no great difficulty in gaining; but I made no revelation to her of the secret reasons by which I was then prompted.

After a considerable sacrifice of time on her account to decorum, and after having endured doublets of humiliation in giving and accepting invitations among the leading members of the good society, the day of our marriage and departure was finally fixed. The week previous I sent my son off with a young gentleman he had scraped some acquaintance with to London, where we proposed (that is, Mrs. Greenknowe and I) to join him, and when we had seen the curiosities, to proceed to Liverpool, and thence sail for New York together.