I essayed to speak to her, but my timidity returned upon me with double force. Mustered courage at length and asked her to sing, and stepped on her toes while turning over her music--praised everything in the wrong place--when she sung a false note, I exclaimed "delicious." She made a two-handed discord, which I pronounced "enchanting," and when at last, from excess of agitation, she broke flat down, I enthusiastically declared that I was "never more delighted in the whole course of my life." Asked her to play a waltz, and handed her a choir-book--opened at "Corinth" and "Silver street"--found I was wrong, and turned over the leaf to "Sinners turn, why will ye die?"--discovered that all was not right yet, and then requested her to play some sacred music, and in my anxiety to get the right notes this time, placed before her the "Jenny Lind Polka," which she at once began to play--I attempting to sing the words of "Old Hundred," which didn't seem to jibe. We tried to dance, but my confusion still continued. I "chassezed" myself across a table, and into a music rack--"promenaded" my partner over the stove--"balanced" her into a side-board, and eventually attempted to seat her in a mirror, where I saw a sofa. Then I essayed conversation, and I am confident I talked the most absurd nonsense for the rest of my call--distinctly remember speaking of Noah Webster's beautiful play of "Evangeline"--eulogising Shakspeare's "Robinson Crusoe"--Thackeray's generalship at Waterloo--attempting to explain the difficulties which attended Henry Ward Beecher's attempts to get his Opera of "Bohemian Girl" before the public--telling who had the blackest eye when President Pierce and Joan of Arc fought their celebrated prize fight in the Crystal Palace in New York in 1793--and at last, breaking down in trying to explain why Admiral Elihu Burritt, and his right hand man Xerxes the Great, did not succeed in taking Sebastopol in a month, according to contract. When I bid her "good night," she took my hand and set me crazy by the touch of her fairy, taper fingers. I dreamed all night about Calanthe--got up in the morning, called the waiter "Calanthe," and said "my darling" to him as he handed me my coffee--gave my tailor an order for a new coat and two pairs of pantaloons, and told him to charge them to "Calanthe"--got a box of cigars and a demijohn of Scotch whiskey, and signed the drayman's receipt "Calanthe"--all the signs read "Calanthe"--every street was "Calanthe" street--all the stages belonged to the "Calanthe" line, and were going to "Calanthe" ferry--the ship "Calanthe" had arrived, the steamboat "Calanthe" had burst her boiler, and the brig "Calanthe" been seen bottom upward with her rudder gone. I saw, heard, read, dreamed, thought, and talked nothing but "Calanthe," and cannibal that I am, I verily believe I ate nothing but "Calanthe" for a month.