hen this happened, but having once pledged my word,
I kept it faithfully through all the studious years that lay between six
and sixteen.

At sixteen an immense crisis occurred in my life. I fell in love. I had
been in love several times before--chiefly with the elder pupils at the
Miss Andrews' establishment; and once (but that was when I was very
young indeed) with the cook. This, however, was a much more romantic and
desperate affair. The lady was a Columbine by profession, and as
beautiful as an angel. She came down to our neighborhood with a
strolling company, and performed every evening, in a temporary theatre
on the green, for nearly three weeks. I used to steal out after dinner
when my father was taking his nap, and run the whole way, that I might
be in time to see the object of my adoration walking up and down the
platform outside the booth before the performances commenced. This
incomparable creature wore a blue petticoat spangled with tinfoil, and a
wreath of faded poppies. Her age might have been about forty. I thought
her the loveliest of created beings. I wrote sonnets to her--dozens of
them--intending to leave them at the theatre door, but never finding the
courage to do it. I made up bouquets for her, over and over again,
chosen from the best flowers in our neglected garden; but invariably
with the same result. I hated the harlequin who presumed to put his arm
about her waist. I envied the clown, whom she condescended to address as
Mr. Merriman. In short, I was so desperately in love that I even tried
to lie awake at night and lose my appetite; but, I am ashamed to own,
failed signally in both endeavors.

At length I wrote to her. I can even now recall passages out of that
passionate epistle. I well remember how it took me a whole morning to
write it; how I crammed it with quotations from Horace; and how I fondly
compared her to most of the mythological divinities. I then copied it
out on pale pink paper, folded it in the form of a heart, and directed
it to Miss Angelina Lascelles, and left it, about dusk, with the
money-taker at the pit door. I signed myself, if I remember rightly,
Pyramus. What would I not have given that evening to pay my sixpence
like the rest of the audience, and feast my eyes upon her from some
obscure corner! What would I not have given to add my quota to
the applause!

I could hardly sleep that night; I could hardly read or write, or eat my
breakfast the next morning, for thin