My love erects this screen,
And writes the words it dare not speak
In ink that can’t be seen.
CRYPTOGRAPHIC CORRESPONDENCE.
A lady wrote to a gentleman thus:—
“I shall be much obliged to you, as reading alone engages my attention at present, if you will lend me any one of the Eight volumes of the Spectator. I hope you will excuse this freedom, but for a winter’s evening I don’t know a better entertainment. If I fail to return it soon, never trust me for the time to come.”
The words successively italicized convey the secret invitation.
MACAULAY’S VALENTINE.
The following valentine from Lord Macaulay to the Hon. Mary C. Stanhope, daughter of Lord and Lady Mahon, 1851, is worthy of being preserved for the sake as much of its author as of its own merits:—
Hail, day of music, day of love!