ng-materials, and wrote,--

"My DEAREST, SWEETEST DORCAS,--Never for one instant has the thought of
you left my heart, since"----

"That's a lie, to begin with!" said he, coolly, and throwing the paper
into the fire,--"try again!"

"DEAREST DORCAS,--I feel and I know what you may possibly think of me
by this time,--that you may possibly imagine me false to the vows which
"----

It will be perceived that Swan had improved in rhetoric, since the day
he parted from his lady-love. Still he could not satisfy himself in a
letter. In short, he felt that expression outran the reality, however
modestly and moderately chosen. Some vividness, some fervency, he must
have, of course. But how in the world to get up the requisite definition
even to the words he could conscientiously use? The second attempt
followed the first.

Swan Day is not the first man who has found himself mistaken in matters
of importance. In his return to his native country, and the scenes of
his early life, he had taken for granted the evergreen condition of his
sentiments. Like the reviving patient in epilepsy, who declares he has
never for an instant lost his consciousness, while the bystanders have
witnessed the dead fall, and taken note of the long interval,--so this
sojourner of fifteen years in strange lands felt the returning pulse of
youth, without thought of the lapsing time that bridges over all gulfs
of emotion, however deep.

In fact, that part of his nature which had been in most violent action
fifteen years before had been lying as torpid under Indian suns as if it
had been dead indeed; and his sense of returning vitality was mixed with
curious speculations about his own sensations.

He dropped the pen, and placed his feet on the top of the high stuffed
easy-chair which adorned the room. This inverted personal condition
relieved his mystification somewhat, or perhaps brought his whole nature
more into harmony.

"Dorcas!--hm! hm!--fifteen years! so it is!--ah! she must be sadly
changed indeed! At thirty, a woman is no longer a wood-nymph. Even more
than thirty she must be."

He removed his feet from their elevation, and carefully arranged a
different scaffolding out of the materials before him, by placing
a cricket on the table, and his feet on the cricket. To do this
effectually and properly required the removal of the four pies, and the
displacement of the cold turkey.

But Swan was mentally removing far greater and more serious
di