Miss Sophia Pitskiver, according to all ordinary ideas of romance and true love, had no right whatever to indulge in such luxuries, being more adapted to make pies than enter into the beauty of sonnets to the moon. She was short, stout--shall we be pardoned for saying the hateful word?--she was dumpy, but a perfect picture of rosy health and hilarious good-nature. And yet, if she had been half a foot taller, and half a yard thinner, and infinitely paler, she could not have been one jot more sentimental. She cultivated sentiment, because it was so pleasant, and her father approved of it because it was genteel. Her enthusiasm was tremendous. Her ideas were all crackers, and exploded at the slightest touch. She had a taste for every thing--poetry, history, fine arts in general, philosophy, glory, puseyism, and, perhaps more than all, for a certain tall young man, with an interesting complexion, whom we have introduced to the courteous reader by the name of the long-backed Ticket. It was this gentleman's note she was now about to read. Sundry palpitations about the robust regions of the heart might, to common eyes, have appeared to arise from her speed in running up stairs. But she knew better. She took but one look of the cheval glass, and broke the seal.
"Stanzas!" she said; and, taking one other glance at the mirror, she exclaimed to the agitated young lady represented there, "only think!" and devoured the following lines:--
"There is a tear that will not fall To cool the burning heart and brain; Oh, I would give my life, my all, To feel once more that blessed rain!
"There is a grief--I feel, in sooth, It rends my soul, it quells my tongue; It dims the sunshine of my youth, But, oh, it will not dim it long!
"There is a place where life is o'er, And sorrow's blasts innocuous rave; A place where sadness comes no more. Know'st thou the place? It is the grave.
"Yes, if within that gentle breast Mild pity ever held her sway, Thou'lt weep for one who finds no rest-- The reason he can never say.
"P.S.--Miss Hendy is an angel upon earth. My friend Mr Bristles, of the _Universal Surveyor_, one of the most distinguished literary men of the age, has got me an invitation to go to her house to-night, to read the first act of my tragedy. Shall I have the happiness of seeing thee? Would to my stars my fate were so fortunate! I enclose you the above lines, which Bristles says are better than any of Lord Byron's, and will publish next week in the _Universal_. Mayest thou like them, sweetest, for they are dedicated to thee, Thine ever--ALMANSOR." What she might have done beyond reading the lines and letter six times over, and crying "beautiful, beautiful!" as fast as she could, it is impossible to say, for at that moment she was called by her venerable sire. She crumpled the note up after the manner of all other heroines, and hid it in her bosom; and hurried to the drawing-room, where she found her father in full dress, pulling on a pair of new kid gloves.