ifficulty into
elegiac expression."

"Then you never really saw the lady you admire?" said Hurlstone
vacantly.

"Never. The story is a romantic one," said Perkins, with a smile that
was half complacent and yet half embarrassed. "May I tell it to you?
Thanks. Some three years ago I contributed some verses to the columns
of a Western paper edited by a friend of mine. The subject chosen was my
favorite one, 'The Liberation of Mankind,' in which I may possibly have
expressed myself with some poetic fervor on a theme so dear to my heart.
I may remark without vanity, that it received high encomiums--perhaps at
some more opportune moment you may be induced to cast your eyes over a
copy I still retain--but no praise touched me as deeply as a tribute
in verse in another journal from a gifted unknown, who signed herself
'Euphemia.' The subject of the poem, which was dedicated to myself,
was on the liberation of women--from--er--I may say certain domestic
shackles; treated perhaps vaguely, but with grace and vigor. I replied
a week later in a larger poem, recording more fully my theories and
aspirations regarding a struggling Central American confederacy,
addressed to 'Euphemia.' She rejoined with equal elaboration and
detail, referring to a more definite form of tyranny in the relations of
marriage, and alluding with some feeling to uncongenial experiences of
her own. An instinct of natural delicacy, veiled under the hyperbole
of 'want of space,' prevented my editorial friend from encouraging the
repetition of this charming interchange of thought and feeling. But I
procured the fair stranger's address; we began a correspondence, at once
imaginative and sympathetic in expression, if not always poetical
in form. I was called to South America by the Macedonian cry of
'Quinquinambo!' I still corresponded with her. When I returned to
Quinquinambo I received letters from her, dated from San Francisco. I
feel that my words could only fail, my dear Hurlstone, to convey to you
the strength and support I derived from those impassioned breathings
of aid and sympathy at that time. Enough for me to confess that it was
mainly due to the deep womanly interest that SHE took in the fortunes
of the passengers of the Excelsior that I gave the Mexican authorities
early notice of their whereabouts. But, pardon me,"--he stopped
hesitatingly, with a slight flush, as he noticed the utterly inattentive
face and attitude of Hurlstone,--"I am boring you.