While under this overpowering impression, Miss Amelia neglected her

twelve dear friends at Chiswick most cruelly, as such selfish people

commonly will do. She had but this subject, of course, to think about;

and Miss Saltire was too cold for a confidante, and she couldn't bring

her mind to tell Miss Swartz, the woolly-haired young heiress from St.

Kitt's. She had little Laura Martin home for the holidays; and my

belief is, she made a confidante of her, and promised that Laura should

come and live with her when she was married, and gave Laura a great

deal of information regarding the passion of love, which must have been

singularly useful and novel to that little person. Alas, alas! I fear

poor Emmy had not a well-regulated mind.

What were her parents doing, not to keep this little heart from beating

so fast? Old Sedley did not seem much to notice matters. He was graver

of late, and his City affairs absorbed him. Mrs. Sedley was of so easy

and uninquisitive a nature that she wasn't even jealous. Mr. Jos was

away, being besieged by an Irish widow at Cheltenham. Amelia had the

house to herself--ah! too much to herself sometimes--not that she ever

doubted; for, to be sure, George must be at the Horse Guards; and he

can't always get leave from Chatham; and he must see his friends and

sisters, and mingle in society when in town (he, such an ornament to

every society!); and when he is with the regiment, he is too tired to

write long letters. I know where she kept that packet she had--and can

steal in and out of her chamber like Iachimo--like Iachimo? No--that

is a bad part. I will only act Moonshine, and peep harmless into the

bed where faith and beauty and innocence lie dreaming.

But if Osborne's were short and soldierlike letters, it must be

confessed, that were Miss Sedley's letters to Mr. Osborne to be

published, we should have to extend this novel to such a multiplicity

of volumes as not the most sentimental reader could support; that she

not only filled sheets of large paper, but crossed them with the most

astonishing perverseness; that she wrote whole pages out of

poetry-books without the least pity; that she underlined words and

passages with quite a frantic emphasis; and, in fine, gave the usual

tokens of her condition. She wasn't a heroine. Her letters were full

of repetition. She wrote rather doubtful grammar sometimes, and in her

verses took all sorts of liberties with the metre. But oh, mesdames,

if you are not allowed to touch the heart sometimes in spite of syntax,

and are not to be loved until you all know the difference between

trimeter and tetrameter, may all Poetry go to the deuce, and every

schoolmaster perish miserably!




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