allianna in the address,
and in an instant determined to use no ceremony.

He tore it open, and read, with savage scowls and horrible contortions
of the visage, that which follows. Unfortunate Jinks--reading private
letters is a hazardous proceeding: and this was what the hero read:

"BOWER OF NATURE,
AT THE MATIN HOUR.

"CHARMING, AND, ALAS!
TOO DANGEROUS YOUNG MAN:

"Since seeing thee, on yester eve, my feelings have greatly changed in
intensity, and I fluctuate beneath an emotion of oblivious delight.
Alas! we young, weak women, try in vain to obstruct the gurgling of
the bosom; for I perceive that even I am not proof against the arrows
of the god Diana. My heart has thrilled, my dearest friend, ever since
you departed, yester eve, with a devious and intrinsic sensation of
voluminous delight. The feelings cannot be concealed, but must be
impressed in words; or, as the great Milton says, in his Bucoliks,
the o'er-fraught heart would break! Love, my dear Mr. Verty, is
contiguous--you cannot be near the beloved object without catching the
contagion, and to this fact I distribute that flame which now flickers
with intense conflagration in my bosom. Why, cruel member of the other
sex! did you evade the privacy of our innocent and nocturnal retreat,
turning the salubrious and maiden emotions of my bosom into agonizing
delight and repressible tribulation! Could you not practice upon
others the wiles of your intrinsic charms, and spare the weak
Sallianna, whose only desire was to contemplate the beauties of nature
in her calm retreat, where a small property sufficed for all her
mundane necessities? Alas! but yester morn I was cheerful and
invigorating--with a large criterion of animal spirits, and a bosom
which had never sighed responsible to the flattering vows of beaux.
But now!--ask me not how I feel, in thinking of _the person_ who has
touched my indurate heart. Need I say that the individual in question
has only to demand that heart, to have it detailed to him in all
its infantile simplicity and diurnal self-reliance? Do not--do
not--diffuse it!

"I have, during the whole period of my mundane pre-existence, always
been troubled with beaux and admirers. I have, in vain, endeavored to
escape from their fascinating diplomas, but they have followed me, and
continued to prosecute me with their adorous intentions. None of
them could ever touch my fanciful disposition, which has exalted an
intrinsic and lofty b