The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1846-09-22 00:00:00

embrace, flurried at any mention of our name, and giving,
in her embarrasment, wr)tie change to a customer, moist
sugar for brown, or tobacco for tea. Hence when three
months had passed over since our parting, we became
indescribably anxious for the promised lever. with all the
protestations of continued love, which our heart told us it
must contain ; and day by day we made inquiry of the
private channel, through which we had arranged to inter-
change our fond-communications. At length it came—a
dumpy little epistle, written upon something between
whitey-brown and tea-paper, and sealed with a thimble.
Although not over.impressed with the elegance of the out-
side, we opened the letter with a flutter of delight, first
kissing the seal, as the next best thing to kissing the
dear dumpy little finger which had impressed it. The
contents, however, although not displaying great excel-
lence of orthography, grammar, or penmanship, were
abundantly gratifying, if professions of •• fervent love,"
" true rffection," and all the other adj-ctives, positive,
comparative, and superlative, which are usually affixed to
these magic words, can convey gratification. We were
happy, and should have remained so, but tor the di;covery
of a hitherto unnoticed postscript, is which the dear girl
apologized for not writing sooner, on the ground that
"she had been afraid of John seeing her write to any
body."
Now, who was John ? Our mind misgave us that there
was an individual of that name, who had recently been
engaged in the shop of Mary's father, as journeyman or
assistant—a spruce personage with a shock head of curly
red hair, and an undeniably good opinion of himselt,
prompted, perhaps, by the circumstance that he had served
his apprenticeship in a third-rate shop in the county town,
and afterwards graduated for a year in London. What
John, however, could have to do with Mary's correspond-
ence puzzled us, until the thought suggested itself that,
probably, her abstracted air and the dejection occasioned
by the absence of one so dear had prompted her father's
suspicions that a love affair was the cause; and that this
monster had ben set to watch her movements with a view
to get at her secret. The flattering thought that it was
for our sake that she feared John, restored us to happiness;
and in the tender reply, which we forwarded at the earliest
pportunity, we thanked her ardently for the consideration
shown for our love.

The year of absence passed rapidly away, contrary to
the general rule of such years. Young hearts, let other
hearts be what they may, are not very susceptible of
undue depression. The non-arrival of further commu-
nications from our,adured—for she never wrote save that
one dumpy whitey-brown epistle—troubled us at times;
but we thought of John's surveillance, and looked for-
ward to a meeting under the churchyard elms for an eclair-
cissement and an exchange of raptures. The time tor
return home arri wed at length, and at dusk in a fine sum•
mer's evening, we stood once more.in our paternal abode ;
and when, late at night, we retired to rest, it was to dream
of the dear old fashioned shop of Peter Bennett and of its
presiding goddess, our beloved little Mary, with a sight of
both of whit h dear objects, the morning sun, we trusted,
would favor us.