MISADVENTURES OF A LOVER. J 6'3 



me, there was a rather long interim between the last and next epis- 

 tolary delivery. This gave birth to the fond hope that the love 

 Cholera had begun to abate among the sex, and that there would be 

 few if any more new cases. Foolish hope ! Short-lived delusion ! 

 The hope, the delusion, had hardly a moment's existence when it 

 vanished by the sound of my landlady's footsteps on another journey 

 up-stairs. She entered my apartment. " Here, Sir/' said she, throw- 

 ing down on the table ten more A. B. letters, "here, Sir, and if 

 there come anymore A. B's, you must come down and fetch them 

 up yourself, or get somebody else to do it for you." 



In ten minutes thereafter I went down-stairs, and to my ineffable 

 satisfaction found there was only one new arrival. I was never more 

 thankful in my life. I returned to my own apartment, and "sat me 

 down" to examine the contents of the heap of epistles before me ; 

 for hitherto they had poured in so fast on me that it required all my 

 activity to receive them and lay them on the table, instead of reading 

 them. An occasional stray one continued to drop in on me until nine 

 o'clock past meridian. Not one of these late ones, however, was 

 opened by me. I chucked them into the fire on their receipt, con- 

 cluding that they could not be the offspring of true, ardent love, as 

 it is always prompt in its motions. 



Well, I at length got to the most important part of the business 

 that of reading the letters, and deciding as to the claims of their re- 

 spective authors. O how my heart palpitated as I sat down to the 

 task ! I commenced. Though the inditers of all professed a boundless 

 attachment to me, there were great differences in the contents of the 

 letters. The first epistle I read augured very ill indeed. The 

 writer made sundry enquiries about my finances, my prospects in 

 life, the rank of my relations, &c., which I assuredly did^not like. I 

 tossed her letter at once into the fire. The second epistle unfolded 

 a candidate for matrimonial bliss who spoke a great deal touching 

 the propriety, necessity indeed, of being regularly asked in church 

 before marriage ; and of having, in the event of making a bargain, 

 a respectable wedding. " Bargain !" I hated the word. It imported 

 something too sordid for me. The flourish about a respectable wed- 

 ding I concluded to mean, if translated into plain English, that the 

 fair scribe had a shoal of acquaintances, which I abhor in a wife. 

 The third lady ran to the opposite extreme. She proposed an instan- 

 taneous elopement, lest her brother should hear of the thing, and by 

 that means prevent the marriage. Elopement ! Brother ! How the 

 words grated on my ears ! I had already the reader will not yet 

 have forgotten poor Lavinia and the inn I had already had a great 

 deal too much of brothers and elopements, to run my head into any 

 thing so foolish again. This letter, as well as the second, followed 

 the first epistle up the chimney in a volume of smoke. It would be 

 endless, and would, besides, answer no good purpose, to specify the 

 objectionable matter I discovered in every intervening letter until I 

 came to number twenty-four. It was just the thing. Its contents 

 were as much to my mind as if I myself had guided the pen of the 

 lovely writer. I put it to all my readers who are aspirants after con- 

 nubial felicity whether they also would not have been charmed by it. 

 Here it is : 



