d to impart. She understood the
hint, howsoever strangely communicated, and, by stepping to one side of
the room gave him an opportunity of slipping the epistle into her hand,
which he gently squeezed at the same time in token of regard: then
throwing a side-glance at the mother, whose back was turned, clapped
his finger on the side of his nose, thereby recommending secrecy and
discretion.

Emilia, conveying the letter into her bosom, could not help smiling at
Tom's politeness and dexterity; but lest her mamma should detect him in
the execution of his pantomime, she broke off this intercourse of signs,
by asking aloud when he proposed to set out on his return to Winchester?
When he answered, "To-morrow morning." Miss Gauntlet recommended him
to the hospitality of her own footman, desiring him to make much of
Mr. Pipes below, where he was kept to supper, and very cordially
entertained. Our young heroine, impatient to read her lover's billet,
which made her heart throb with rapturous expectation, retired to her
chamber as soon as possible, with a view of perusing the contents, which
were these:--

"Divine Empress Of My Soul,--If the refulgent flames of your
beauty had not evaporated the particles of my transported
brain, and scorched my intellects into a cinder of stolidity,
perhaps the resplendency of my passion might shine illustrious
through the sable curtain of my ink, and in sublimity transcend
the galaxy itself, though wafted on the pinions of a gray goose
quill! But, ah! celestial enchantress! the necromancy of thy
tyrannical charms hath fettered my faculties with adamantine
chains, which, unless thy compassion shall melt I must eternally
remain in the Tartarean gulf of dismal despair. Vouchsafe,
therefore, O thou brightest luminary of this terrestrial sphere!
to warm, as well as shine; and let the genial rays of thy
benevolence melt the icy emanations of thy disdain, which hath
frozen up the spirits of angelic pre-eminence.--Thy most
egregious admirer and superlative slave,
"Peregrine Pickle."

Never was astonishment more perplexing than that of Emilia, when she
read this curious composition, which she repeated verbatim three times
before she would credit the evidence of her own senses. She began to
fear in good earnest that love had produced a disorder in her lover's
understanding; but after a thousand conjectur