"As the grave, madam."
This sufficed; the lady took a pinch of snuff—told me that she had been recommended to employ me by Mr. Quireandquill; and I prepared for action. She had a daughter young, beautiful, and innocent—but gay, affectionate, and thoughtless; she had given her heart in keeping to one who, though rich in love, lacked all other possessions; and, finally, she had bestowed her hand where affection prompted. But the chilled heart feels not like that which is warm with youth—its pulses beat not to the same measure—its impulses impel not to the same arts; the mother felt as a guardian and a parent—the daughter as a woman and a fond one; the one had been imprudent—the other was inexorable; my first task was to be the unwrenching of the holy bonds which united a child and her parent,—the announcement of an abandonment utter and irrevocable; I wrote the letter, and if I softened down a few harsh expressions, and omitted some sentences of heart-breaking severity, surely it was no breach of faith, or if, indeed, it were, it was one for which, even at this time, I do not blush.
The old lady saw her letter sealed and addressed, and departed; and I hastily partook of a scanty breakfast, the produce of my first episolatory speculation. I need not have been so precipitate in dispatching my repast, for some dreary hours intervened ere the arrival of another visiter. One, however, came at length; a tremulous, almost inaudible, stroke upon the door, and a nervous clasp of the latch, again spoke hope to my sinking spirits; and, with a swift step, I rose and gave admittance to a young and timid girl, blushing, and trembling, and wondering, as it seemed, at the extent of her own daring. This business was not so readily despatched as that of the angry matron. There were a thousand promises of secrecy to be given; a thousand tremors to be overcome.
"I am a poor girl, Sir," she said at length, "but I am an honest one; therefore, before I take up your time, I must know whether I can afford to pay for it."
"That," said I, and even amid my poverty I could not suppress a feeling of amusement, "that depends wholly on the subject of your epistle; business requires few words, and less ingenuity, and is fairly paid for by a couple of shillings; but a love letter is cheap at three and sixpence, for it requires an infinity of each."
"Then I may as well wish you good day at once, Sir, for I have but half-a-crown in the world that I can call my own, and I cannot run into debt, even to write to Charles." There was a tear in her eye as she rose to go, and it was a beautiful blue eye, better fitted to smiles than tears; this was enough, and, even poor as I was, I would not have missed the opportunity of writing this letter, though I had been a loser by the task. Happy Charles! I wrote from her dictation, and it is wonderful how well the heart prompts to eloquence, even among the uneducated and obscure. In all honesty, though I had but jested with my pretty employer, this genuine love-letter was well worth the three and sixpence—it was written, and crossed, and rewritten at right angles, and covered on the folds and under the wafer, and, finally, unsealed to insert a few "more last words." It was a very history of the heart!—of a heart untainted by error—unsophisticated by fashion—unfettered by the world's ways: a little catalogue of woman's best, and tenderest, and holiest feelings, warm from the spirit's core, and welling out like the pure waters of a ground spring. How the eye fell, and the voice sunk, as she recorded some little doubt, some fond self-created fear; how the tones gladdened, and the blue eyes laughed out in joy, as she spoke of hopes and prospects, to which she clung trustingly, as woman ever does to her first affection. What would I not have given to have been the receiver of such a letter?—What to have been the idol of such a heart? And, as she eagerly bent over me to watch the progress of her epistle, her hand resting on my arm, and her warm breath playing over my brow, while at intervals a fond sigh escaped her, she from time to time reminded me of the promises I had made never to betray her secret—beautiful innocent! I would have died first. She was with me nearly two hours, and left me with a flushed cheek, her letter in one hand and her half-crown in the other—had I robbed her of it, I should have merited the pillory.
My third customer was a stiff, tall, bony man, of about fifty-five, and for this worthy I wrote an advertisement for a wife. He was thin, and shy, and emaciated—a breathing skeleton, in the receipt of some hundred and twenty pounds a-year; a martyr to the rheumatism, and a radical. He required but little; a moderate fortune; tolerable person; good education; perfect housewifery; implicit obedience; and, finally, wound up the list of requisites from mere lack of breath, and modestly intimated that youth would not be considered an objection, provided that great prudence and rigid economy accompanied it. He was the veriest antidote to matrimony I ever beheld!
My calling prospered. I wrote letters of condolence and of congratulation; made out bills, and composed valentines; became the friend of every pretty girl and fine youth in the parish; and never breathed one of their mighty secrets in the wrong quarter. In the midst of this success, a new ambition fired me—I had been an author for months; but though I had found my finances more flourishing, the bays bloomed not upon my brow; and I was just about to turn author in good earnest, when a distant relation died, and bequeathed to me an annuity of four hundred pounds a-year; and I have been so much engaged ever since in receiving the visits of some hitherto unknown relatives and connexions, that I have only been able to compose the title-page, and to send this hint to destitute young gentlemen who may have an epistolatory turn; and to such I offer the assurance, that there is pleasure in being the depositary of a pretty girl's secrets. "There are worse occupations in the world, Yorick, than feeling a woman's pulse."—The Inspector.