, they tell me, but this is something deeper and
more poetic than such things usually are. It means mischief, as Cousin
Dempster says. It is a proposal, buried in roses and veiled in sweet and
modest verse, such as a lady might almost send at any time with a few
blushes. It will reach him out in that vast wilderness of dead grass,
where he has been deluded off by Mr. Sheridan, and has risked his
precious life in a terrific manner, shooting great, monstrous buffaloes,
which are animals, they tell me, something like an overgrown ox, only
the hair is longer, and they are kind of hunched-up about the upper end
of the back, just as if the last city fashions among ladies had got to
be the rage out there.

Imagine my feelings, sisters, when I heard that the Grand Duke was off
with that fellow and a squad of wild Indians, all in war-paint and
tomahawks, hunting these terrific creatures. It almost made me feel like
a widow. There he was, brought up so tenderly, eating broiled buffalo
hump, and drinking champagne and things out in the open lots, as big as
all out-doors, and sleeping in a tent. Think of it! With his own right
hand he shot down twenty-five of these humpbacked monsters, and means to
carry their skins home with him to Russia. I suppose Mr. Philip Sheridan
will be for studying the military tactics of Russia from St. Petersburg
to Siberia as soon as the great Grand Duke gets back, for he isn't the
sort of fellow, folks tell me, to give up a chance like that. Governor
Palmer, of Illinois, has, at any rate, given him leave of absence from
the Chicago fires, and there isn't anything much to keep him from
hunting in Siberia if he wants to.

Well, I got my valentine all ready; directed it to the Grand Duke in a
delicate, ladylike way, and took it with my own hands down to the
post-office.

"Be very careful of this," says I to a young man who stood at the
post-office window, "and see that it goes straight to his Royal
Highness; I want it to reach him the first thing in the morning on
Valentine's Day."

He looked at the address, and muttered to himself:

"For His Royal Highness the Grand Duke of all the Russias: care of
Philip Sheridan and a wild Indian whose name a refined lady could not
bring herself to pronounce; Buffalo Plains, America."

"My dear madame," says he, all at once, "this is no address at all; it
would never reach the Grand Duke."

I caught my breath.

"Not reach him?" says I.

"No," says he; "the