Yes, Katie Wilmot was _very_ proud of that; and she might have been heard from time to time, through the evening, repeating with peculiar satisfaction what seemed to be her two favorite lines, While this resolve I’ve made sincerely To kiss and pet and love you dearly! These three appropriate little verses, addressed to Amy Carter, next demand our attention. The “Household Witch,” _thy_ winning name, Because o’er all around thee, To weave Love’s magic spell the aim, Which true as Truth has found thee! Then as through future years thy smiles Illume this favored dwelling, All shadows by thy frolic wiles And witchery dispelling. By wile and smile in every niche, All needless gloom suppressing, Remaining yet the Household Witch, Still prove—_the Household Blessing_! Dear Amy Carter! The ardent, impulsive kiss which your lips imprinted upon that well-known handwriting, told how precious was this pleasant tribute; that you recognized and blessed the traces of your childhood’s loving friend, of your girlhood’s guardian angel! One more poetical heart-effusion and our recording space is filled even to overflowing. It is inscribed to Mrs. Clinton. Though I turn, I fly not, I cannot depart; I would try, but try not, To release my heart; And my hopes are dying, While on dreams relying, I am spelled by art. Thus the bright snake coiling ’Neath the forest tree, Wins the bird beguiling To come down and see. Like that bird the lover, Round his fate will hover, Till the blow is over, And he sinks—like me! Ah, Mrs. Clinton! when you read that token of a never-fading attachment, your sorrowing spirit murmured in tones of subdued melancholy, “For years he has followed me, and though I have never encouraged his attentions, it has seemed as if I could not be forgotten—as though he could not bear to give me up. Yet I can never be grateful for his love, I must only regret that it has been bestowed upon me. I can make him no return—for still with me “Affection sheds its holiest light Upon my husband’s tomb!” And so with “tears, radiant emanations,” welling from the innermost depths of your soul, and glistening in your eyes, with intuitive delicacy, you placed that avowal of disappointed affection in your portfolio, deeming it there so safe from observation that not even Amy, your darling, would ever catch a glimpse of it. But, unfortunately, on the way to your own apartment, it escaped from its hiding-place, and was picked up upon the stair by one of your little nieces, who transferred it to the general Valentine-receptacle in the parlor. By and by you will doubtless ask yourself with regretful wonder, how it came there.