254 The Fourteenth ; or, [MARCH, 



rich relative should be known, and that in five days an answer should be 

 sent. Well, five days were not quite an eternity ; it was only to wait with 

 patience the hour would come. My heart beat responses to the clock, 

 and ticked as if it had been warranted. I watched every hour that 

 came, as a debtor does a dun, and was thankful when it was gone. Five 

 days twelfth, thirteenth, fourteenth it would be the fourteenth of the 

 month. Memorable date ! I fancied myself in my fourteenth year, and 

 that I was going to be bound apprentice to Pan or Apollo, Nothing 

 but delight was before me. There seemed to be no number beyond 

 fourteen ; that formed the sum - total of my arithmetic and my 

 anxiety. Yet it appeared to contain more figures than the national 

 debt ; I thought it never would come. At last, however, it arrived. 

 Heavens ! what a discovery I then made : it was the commence- 

 ment of a new hebdomad; it was a dies non ; it was, in short, 

 Sunday ! I found it out by the title of my newepaper on the 

 breakfast table. Watching for the fourteenth, I had overlooked 

 the days of the week. I read the paper completely through, down to 

 the printer's name, to revenge myself" on my stupidity. The day, how- 

 ever, departed in the usual way ; the sun sunk, and, to my great satis- 

 faction, rose again. Now, then, for my letter. " Letitia," said I (these 

 girls get such fine names), " you may bring up my coffee ; and mind, 

 I expect a letter this morning ; pray let me have it the moment it 

 comes." The girl stared at first, and then I believe almost tittered. 

 " There has been one already, sir." c< There has !'' exclaimed I, in a 

 rapture ; ' ' never mind the coffee now ; put that down immediately, and 

 bring me the letter." She indulged me with another stare, and treated 

 herself with another internal titter. " Oh ! I refused it, sir," said she, 

 with an air of discretion, and a smile that betrayed much satisfaction 

 with herself, and surprise at my emotion. " Refused it ! furies ! when ? 

 w hy ?" " It came by the eight o'clock post, sir. I thought it was a 

 valentine, and that of course you would not take it in/' This was said 

 with a significant glance at my figure, intimating, in very good English, 

 that she considered me a fair subject for a quiz ; and that the epistle she 

 had, with so much tenderness for me, rejected, was a dispatch not from 

 Cupid, but from Momus. I was in a violent rage, but I smothered it in 

 its birth. I felt an earthquake within me, but stood firm. It was not so 

 much at the girl's good-humoured glance, and the commiseration with 

 which she regarded me, as at the loss of my letter, and the situation I 

 was in, in expecting an epistle of such importance upon such a day. I 

 summoned my wits, and held a select vestry in my mind. The result 

 was inevitable ; I was obliged to take in every letter that came, until the 

 right one arrived. I communicated this determination to Letty, with 

 instructions to deliver them to me without delay. " Certainly, sir," 

 said she, " and if I had known that you take such things in, I would not 

 have refused the one that came this morning but I have seen rather 

 handsome gentlemen send them back." 



Determined not to be disconcerted by this incident, but to wait at 

 home the whole day, I -drew my chair almost into the fire, and invented 

 a plan for laying out my grounds when I got them ; and then I longed 

 for the lease to arrive or in other words, for the letter ! The post-hour 

 came, and Heu mihi I what an inundation of dispatches ! I forget how 

 many some at twopence, some at threepence none paid ! The whole 

 Post-Office establishment, backed by the Stationers' Company, had 



