Her features, everybody agreed, were comely and intelligent. But
that advantage in the matrimonial market was more than neutralised by
her unfortunate figure, which, owing, as we understood, to a fall in
her childhood, was hopelessly deformed, though still strongly set and
muscular. Albeit, a sum of money--about fifty pounds--scraped together
by thrifty self-denial during a dozen years of servitude, amply
compensated in the eyes of several idle and needy young fellows for
the unlovely outline of her person; and Anne, with an infatuation too
common with persons of her class and condition, and in spite of
repeated warning, and the secret misgivings, one would suppose, of her
own mind, married the best-looking, but most worthless and dissipated
of them all. This man, Henry Ransome by name, was, I have been
informed, constantly intoxicated during the first three months of
wedlock, and then the ill-assorted couple disappeared from the
neighbourhood of Itchen, and took up their abode in one of the hamlets
of the New Forest. Many years afterwards, when I joined the Preventive
Service, I frequently heard mention of his name as that of a man
singularly skilful in defrauding the revenue, as well as in avoiding
the penalties which surround that dangerous vocation.
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