188 Kate Oshorne, [April, 



[For the Cincinnatus. 

 KATE OSBORNE. 



BY PHILO BIJRRITT. 



On a bright and balmy morning in the spring of 1853, a fine looking, 

 lady-like woman, wearing the sable weeds of widowhood, alighted from 

 her carriage in front of the Post Office, in the city of Troy, New York ; 

 and standing before the grim-looking mouth of the capacious " letter- 

 box " which, "though forever receiving, nothing gives," she hesitated a 

 moment as if in dread or doubt ; then, lifting a snowy hand, a " letter 

 missive " glided from her fingers into the insatiate receptacle of " postal 

 matter." 



As Kingsley would say — what a " muddle " is a mail bag ! What an 

 amalgam of the vulgar and the refined, the false and the true, the 

 sublime and the ridiculous, the delicate and the rude, the gentle and 

 severe, the sorrowful and the joyful, of the angry and the aficctionate, is 

 compounded within its leathern limits ! Therein the poet's web of golden 

 thought is pressed close down upon the banker's draft ; the mother's 

 kind epistle,, filled with fondness, to a loving daughter, is face to face 

 with the querulous merchant's angry dun ; the tender h'dlet doux, traced 

 by delicate fingers on "rose scented note," is jolting along side by side 

 with the butcher's greasy bill of lading for the consignment of a " lot of 

 sheep-pelts, cow-hides, and horns ! " Verily, what ' a muddle ' is a mail 

 bag! 



But, among all the motley mass of epistolary missives that day dis- 

 patched from the office of our modern Troy, there was but one that con- 

 cerned ourselves : ' Twas the same the handsome widow had that morning 

 mailed ; and that ran thus — as Asmodeus doth depose : 



Troy, K Y., May 17—1853. 



Dear Brother John : It affords me pleasure to inform you that Kate 

 is. looking remarkably well, and is in blooming health. Possibly my 

 partiality for her as my namesake-niece, may influence my opinion, but 

 really I think her beautiful: amiable I know she is. Under Mrs. 

 Willard's efficient training, she has rapidly improved in her education, 

 and now ranks high among the most gifted pupils of the Seminary. To 

 me she is a great solace in my bereavement ; and by her gentle gaiety 

 and tender sympathy, she seems to fill my lonely home with sunshine 

 and gladness. I shall miss her so.-iety greatly when you summon her to 

 your western home. 



