inded of the beautifying
patches of the days of Queen Anne, but more particularly, sir, of the
blankest beautiful women that, blank you, you ever laid your two blank
eyes upon--a Creole woman, sir, in New Orleans. And this woman had a
scar--a line extending, blank me, from her eye to her blank chin. And
this woman, sir, thrilled you, sir; maddened you, sir; absolutely sent
your blank soul to perdition with her blank fascination! And one day I
said to her, 'Celeste, how in blank did you come by that beautiful scar,
blank you?' And she said to me, 'Star, there isn't another white man
that I'd confide in but you; but I made that scar myself, purposely, I
did, blank me.' These were her very words, sir, and perhaps you think it
a blank lie, sir; but I'll put up any blank sum you can name and prove
it, blank me."

Indeed, most of the male population of Fiddletown were or had been in
love with her. Of this number, about one-half believed that their love
was returned, with the exception, possibly, of her own husband. He alone
had been known to express skepticism.

The name of the gentleman who enjoyed this infelicitous distinction was
Tretherick. He had been divorced from an excellent wife to marry this
Fiddletown enchantress. She, also, had been divorced; but it was hinted
that some previous experiences of hers in that legal formality had made
it perhaps less novel, and probably less sacrificial. I would not have
it inferred from this that she was deficient in sentiment, or devoid of
its highest moral expression. Her intimate friend had written (on the
occasion of her second divorce), "The cold world does not understand
Clara yet"; and Colonel Starbottle had remarked blankly that with the
exception of a single woman in Opelousas Parish, La., she had more soul
than the whole caboodle of them put together. Few indeed could read
those lines entitled "Infelissimus," commencing "Why waves no cypress
o'er this brow?" originally published in the AVALANCHE, over the
signature of "The Lady Clare," without feeling the tear of sensibility
tremble on his eyelids, or the glow of virtuous indignation mantle his
cheek, at the low brutality and pitiable jocularity of THE DUTCH FLAT
INTELLIGENCER, which the next week had suggested the exotic character
of the cypress, and its entire absence from Fiddletown, as a reasonable
answer to the query.

Indeed, it was this tendency to elaborate her feelings in a metrical
manner, and deliver them to t