Sometimes a welcome letter from cheerful Cousin Monica;
and now, to vary the series, a copy of complimentary verses, without a
signature, very adoring--very like Byron, I then fancied, and now, I must
confess, rather vapid. Could I doubt from whom they came?
I had received, about a month after my arrival, a copy of verses in the
same hand, in a plaintive ballad style, of the soldierly sort, in which the
writer said, that as living his sole object was to please me, so dying I
should be his latest thought; and some more poetic impieties, asking only
in return that when the storm of battle had swept over, I should 'shed
a tear' on seeing 'the _oak lie_, where it fell.' Of course, about
this lugubrious pun, there could be no misconception. The Captain was
unmistakably indicated; and I was so moved that I could no longer retain
my secret; but walking with Milly that day, confided the little romance to
that unsophisticated listener, under the chestnut trees. The lines were so
amorously dejected, and yet so heroically redolent of blood and gunpowder,
that Milly and I agreed that the writer must be on the verge of a
sanguinary campaign.
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