The servants at the mansion did not convey numerous
letters with superscriptions in a bold, manly hand, sealed with the arms
of a well-known house, and directed to Miss Helen Darley; nor, on the
other hand, did Hiram, the man from the lean streak in New Hampshire,
carry sweet-smelling, rose-hued, many-layered, criss-crossed,
fine-stitch-lettered packages of note-paper directed to Dudley Venner,
Esq., and all too scanty to hold that incredible expansion of the famous
three words which a woman was born to say,--that perpetual miracle which
astonishes all the go-betweens who wear their shoes out in carrying a
woman's infinite variations on the theme, "I love you."
But the reader must remember that there are walks in country-towns where
people are liable to meet by accident, and that the hollow of an old
tree has served the purpose of a post-office sometimes; so that he has
her choice (to divide the pronouns impartially) of various hypotheses to
account for the new glory of happiness which seemed to have irradiated
our poor Helen's features, as if her dreary life were awakening in the
dawn of a blessed future.
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