It is likely I shall not despatch this without being able to tell you more of this great man's house; meanwhile--"majora cantamus"--I am in love, Bob! If I did n't dash into the confession at once, as one springs into the sea of a chilly morning, I'd even put on the clothes of secrecy, and walk off unconfessed. She is lovely, beyond anything I can give you an idea of,--pale as marble; but such a flesh tint! a sunset sleeping upon snow, and with lids fringed over a third of her cheek. You know the tender, languid, longing look that vanquishes me,--that's exactly what she has! A glance of timid surprise, like an affrighted fawn, and then a downcast consciousness,--a kind of self-reproaching sense of her own loveliness,--a sort of a--what the devil kind of enchantment and witchery, Bob? that makes a man feel it's all no use struggling and fighting,--that his doom is _there!_ that the influence which is to rule his destiny is before him, and that, turn him which way he will, his heart has but one road--and _will_ take it! She was in Box 19, over the orchestra! I caught a glimpse of her shoulder--only her shoulder--at first, as she sat with her face to the stage, and a huge screen shaded her from the garish light of the lustre. How I watched the graceful bend of her neck each time she saluted--I suppose it was a salutation--some new visitor who entered! The drooping leaves and flowers of her hair trembled with a gentle motion, as if to the music of her soft voice. I thought I could hear the very accents echoing within my heart! But oh! my ecstasy when her hand stole forth and hung listlessly over the cushion of the box! True it was gloved, yet still you could mark its symmetry, and, in fancy, picture the rosy-tipped fingers in all their graceful beauty. Night after night I saw her thus; yet never more than I have told you. I made superhuman efforts to obtain the box directly in front; but it belonged to a Russian princess, and was therefore inaccessible. I bribed the bassoon and seduced the oboe in the orchestra; but nothing was to be seen from their inferno of discordant tunings. I made love to a ballet-dancer, to secure the _entrée_ behind the scenes; and on the night of my success _she_--my adored one--had changed her place with a friend, and sat with her back to the stage. The adverse fates had taken a spite against me, Bob, and I saw that my passion must prove unhappy! Somehow it is in love as in hunting, you are never really in earnest so long as the country is open and the fences easy; but once that the ditches are "yawners," and the walls "raspers," you sit down to your work with a resolute heart and a steady eye, determined, at any cost and at any peril, to be in at the death. Would that the penalties were alike also! How gladly would I barter a fractured rib or a smashed collar-bone for the wrecked and cast-away spirit of my lost and broken heart!