Prescott journal. [volume] (Prescott, Wis.) 1861-1871, 1864-04-30
THE LOST LOvE-LETTER.

"Well, wonders will never cease y
1t was a bright little boudoir, with sea-
green walls and carpet of the softest emerald
velvet, the windows dim with the branching
greenery of fragrant lemon-trees, and a silky
black spaniel coiled up on the rug in front OF
the fire. Miss Melissa Jones sat in the mid
die of the room, her false curls stirred by
some inward agitation, and her forty-year old
cheek flushed with a bloom more genuine
than she usually wore, while her gypsy-like
niece, Nelly Howard, dark-brilliant beauty
of seventeen, leaned over her shoulder and
eagerly perused the open letter that lay in
| the worthy spinster's lap. She it was who
had made the above remark, to which Aunt
Melissa answered testify:
''Wonders? | don't see anything so very
wonderful in the matter If Gerald Plumer
chooses to fall in love with me, / can't help
il 7"
"Why, aunty, he is only twenty-five, and
you are forty !"
"0nly thirty-nine !" calculated Miss Melis-
sa, in rather belligerent tone of voice.
g And he is handsome, and-now, aunty,
pardon me, but you never pretended to be a
beauty ~
Miss Melissa's cheek grew scarlet.
Mr.. Plumer possibly recognizes the power
of intellectual charms" she answered tartly.
"And more than this" pursued the relent-
less Nelly, everybody supposed the young
man in question to be desperately in love
with our little Efie-where is she, by the
way? Gone up stairs, suppose, to cry over
her defaulting cavalier. Well, shall coun
sci her to call pride to her assistance But,
by the way, aunty, you haven't told me how
and when this epistle arrived. By post or
through a messenger ?"
1t was yesterday evening"" she simperd,
'Mr. Plumer-Gerald, / should say" Nelly
made grimace) y" called. He only stood a
minute, talking, by the fire. / supposed,
foolish thing that l was, his short stay was
owing to Effie's being away from home. But
he had not been gone five mnntes before /
discovered this folded paper lying on the floor
at my feet. Was it not an exquisite way of
proposing? See, he calls me his "dearest
One," and signs himself my "ever devoted
slave !"'
Fiddlesticks, Aunt Melissa I" exclaimed
the irreverent Nelly. 60 He only wants your
forty thousand dollars It's just impossible
that young man like him can really have
fallen in love with your
Aunt Melissa rose from the chair with a
countenance of such lowering wrath, that
Miss Nelly wisely remembered the maxim
about discretion being the better part of valor,
and beat nasty retreat, only stopping once,
to laugh, on the stairs But her countenance
changed as she entered the room where a
young girl sat, with her forehead resting on
the window ledge, and her violet eyes spark
ling with tears
"Crying, Fife Let me wipe the tears
away, darling-he isn't worth one of those
diamond drops"
"Oh, Nelly, I was so secure in the certainty
of his love !"
"FOrget him, dearest y urged Nelly. "Nay
don't sob so piteously-summon up all the
pride there is in your gentle nature, and meet
him in future as coldly as though he were a
strangeEi'1 ~ 80 a
And Effie, through her sobs, faltered out
that she would try.
Miss Melissa blossomed out that evening
like peony, in georgous crimson silk dress
with gigantic bracelets on her arms, and sat
in state in the parlor, her false ringlets glossy
with pomatum.
" For Gerald's note said he would call soon,
to receive his fate from my own lips" she
simpered.
But, to her inexpressible establishment,
Gerald did not call that evening, nor yet the
next Miss Melissa was puzzeld-in all the
novels she had ever read, she could not re