My Wife's Tempter

Elsie and I were to be married in less than a week. It was rather a
strange match, and I knew that some of our neighbors shook their heads
over it and said that no good would come. The way it came to pass was
thus.

I loved Elsie Burns for two years, during which time she refused me
three times. I could no more help asking her to have me, when the
chance offered, than I could help breathing or living. To love her
seemed natural to me as existence. I felt no shame, only sorrow, when
she rejected me; I felt no shame either when I renewed my suit. The
neighbors called me mean-spirited to take up with any girl that had
refused me as often as Elsie Burns had done; but what cared I about
the neighbors? If it is black weather, and the sun is under a cloud
every day for a month, is that any reason why the poor farmer should
not hope for the blue sky and the plentiful burst of warm light when
the dark month is over? I never entirely lost heart. Do not, however,
mistake me. I did not mope, and moan, and grow pale, after the manner
of poetical lovers. No such thing. I went bravely about my business,
ate and drank as usual, laughed when the laugh went round, and slept
soundly, and woke refreshed. Yet all this time I loved--desperately
loved--Elsie Burns. I went wherever I hoped to meet her, but did not
haunt her with my attentions. I behaved to her as any friendly young
man would have behaved: I met her and parted from her cheerfully. She
was a good girl, too, and behaved well. She had me in her power---how
a woman in Elsie's situation could have mortified a man in mine!--but
she never took the slightest advantage of it. She danced with me when
I asked her, and had no foolish fears of allowing me to see her home
of nights, after a ball was over, or of wandering with me through the
pleasant New England fields when the wild flowers made the paths like
roads in fairyland.