“I wish I could come and see you. I never suffer myself to think you are about returning soon. Can it, will it be? May I ask--may I wish for it? When once I expect you----But hush! Do you know it is eleven o’clock at night?... Pray don’t let Bass forget my pins. We shall soon have no coffee, nor sugar, nor pepper here; but whortleberries and milk we are not obliged to commerce for. I saw a letter of yours to Colonel Palmer by General Washington. I hope I have one too. Good-night. With thoughts of thee I close my eyes. Angels guard and protect thee; and may a safe return ere long bless thy Portia.” It was always Diana or Portia, after the romantic fashion of those days; and who would not rather have been Portia than plain Abigail to her lover? A curious literary and historical fact, not generally known, is that General Benedict Arnold, who was notorious for his extravagance in public and private life, was extremely parsimonious in the matter of love-letters. By the infallible proof of an old letter, recently discovered, it appears that he made the same amatory composition do double duty, having used it in addressing at least two ladies of his choice. The letter was first employed in a proposal to Miss A., whom he did not marry, and with a few changes was used in offering himself to the beautiful Miss Peggy Shippen, of Philadelphia, whom he married in 1779. The letter, as addressed to Miss Shippen, is to be found in Arnold’s “Life of Benedict Arnold,” and is undoubtedly a fine sample of a love-letter of a rather florid and bombastic style. If Miss Shippen had realized that her suitor had written to an earlier love that her “charms had lighted up a flame in his bosom which could never be extinguished, that her heavenly image was too dear to be ever effaced, and that Heaven’s blessing should be implored for the idol and _only_ wish of his soul,” she might with some reason have hesitated to bestow her hand upon so trite a lover, who could find no fresh adjectives to match her charms.