re, that I
should take this image and leave it at Mrs. B.'s, for that I didn't wish
to leave anything behind me that must bring me back again. Then up she
comes and starts a likeness to her lover: she knew I should give it her
on the spot--"No, she would keep it for me!" So I must come back for
it. Whether art or nature, it is sublime. I told her I should write
and tell you so, and that I parted from her, confiding, adoring!--She is
beyond me, that's certain. Do go and see her, and desire her not to
give my present address to a single soul, and learn if the lodging is
let, and to whom. My letter to her is as follows. If she shews the
least remorse at it, I'll be hanged, though it might move a stone, I
modestly think. (See before, Part I. first letter.)

N.B.--I have begun a book of our conversations (I mean mine and the
statue's) which I call LIBER AMORIS. I was detained at Stamford and
found myself dull, and could hit upon no other way of employing my time
so agreeably.

LETTER II

Dear P----, Here, without loss of time, in order that I may have your
opinion upon it, is little Yes and No's answer to my last.

"Sir, I should not have disregarded your injunction not to send you any
more letters that might come to you, had I not promised the Gentleman
who left the enclosed to forward it the earliest opportunity, as he said
it was of consequence. Mr. P---- called the day after you left town.
My mother and myself are much obliged by your kind offer of tickets to
the play, but must decline accepting it. My family send their best
respects, in which they are joined by

Yours, truly,

S. L.

The deuce a bit more is there of it. If you can make anything out of it
(or any body else) I'll be hanged. You are to understand, this comes in
a frank, the second I have received from her, with a name I can't make
out, and she won't tell me, though I asked her, where she got franks, as
also whether the lodgings were let, to neither of which a word of
answer. * * * * is the name on the frank: see if you can decypher it by
a Red-book. I suspect her grievously of being an arrant jilt, to say no
more--yet I love her dearly. Do you know I'm going to write to that
sweet rogue presently, having a whole evening to myself in advance of my
work? Now mark, before you set about your exposition of the new
Apocalypse of the new Calypso, the only thing to be endured in the above
letter is the date. It was written th