

J827.] The Tivo Valentines. 265 



knuckles have Sally North's blunders cost Stephen Long, and vainly did 

 the master admonish him to hold his tongue. Prompt he would although 

 so incorrigibly stupid was his fair mistress, that, even when the words 

 were put into her mouth, she stumbled at repeating them ; and Stephen's 

 officious kindness commonly ended in their being punished in company 

 a consummation, for his share of which the boy was gallant enough to 

 rejoice. She was fully sensible of this flattering devotion, and repaid it, 

 as far as lay in her power, by taking him under her protection at play- 

 times, in return for the services which he rendered her in school ; and, 

 becoming more and more bound to him by a series of mutual good offices, 

 finished by vindicating his ugliness, denying his pedantry, and, when 

 twitted with his dwarfish ness, boldly predicting that he would grow. 

 They walked together, talked together, laughed, romped, and quarrelled 

 in short, it was a decided attachment ; and when our village Romeo was 

 taken as an apprentice by a cousin of his mother's a respectable hosier in 

 Cheapside it is on record, that his Juliet the lightest-hearted personage 

 in the neighbourhood cried for an hoof, and moped for a day. All the 

 school stood amazed at her constancy ! 



Stephen, on his side, bore the test of absence, like a knight of Amadis 

 his day. Never was preux chevalier so devoted to the lady of his love. 

 Every letter home contained some tender message or fond inquiry ; arid 

 although the messages became gradually less and less intelligible, as the 

 small pedantry of the country schoolboy ripened into the full-blown affec- 

 tation of the London apprentice, still Sally was far from quarrelling with 

 a love message, on so small a ground as not understanding it ; whilst, 

 however mysterious his words might seem, his presents spoke his affection 

 in a more homely and convincing language. Of such tokens there was 

 no lack. The very first packet that he sent home, consisting of worsted 

 mittens for his old grandmother, a pair of cotton hose for his sister, and 

 a nightcap for his father, contained also a pair of scarlet garters for 

 Sally ; which attention was followed up at every opportunity by pin- 

 cushions, ribbons, thimbles, needle-cases, and as great a variety of female 

 ware as that with which Autolycas's basket was furnished. No wonder 

 that Sally, in spite of occasional flirtations with Daniel Tabb, continued 

 tolerably constant; especially as one of Stephen's sisters, who had been 

 at service in London, affirmed that he was so much improved, as to be one 

 of the smartest beaux in all Cheapside. 



So affairs continued until this identical Valentine's Day. Last spring, 

 a written Valentine, exceedingly choice in its decorations, had made its 

 appearance at Master North's; rather out of date, it must be owned, since, 

 being enclosed in a packet, to save postage, and sent by an opportunity, 

 as the country phrase goes, it had been detained either by accident or 

 waggery till the First of April: but this was none of Stephen's fault; 

 there was the Valentine in the newest London taste, consisting of a raised 

 groupe of roses and heartVease, executed on a kind of paper cut- work, 

 which, on being lifted up, turned into a cage, enclosing a dove ; tender 

 emblem ! with all the rapidity of a change in a pantomime. There the 

 Valentine was equally known for Stephen's, by the savour of the verses 

 and the flourish of the signature the finest specimen of poetry and pen- 

 manship, as my friend the schoolmaster triumphantly asserted, that had 

 ever been seen in Aberleigh. " The force of writing could no farther 

 go;" so, this year, our " good apprentice" determined to come himself to 



M. M. New Series. VOL. III. No. 15. 2 M 



