But why should we repeat what every one can imagine so well for himself?  At last, the hour of parting came; and, week after week, her stay at the cottage had been prolonged, till our departure took place before hers.  And on that day she looked, as all men’s sweethearts do at leaving them, more touchingly beautiful than ever we had seen her before; and after we had torn ourself away, we looked back, and there we saw her standing in the same spot we had left her, a statue of misery and despair,—­“like Niobe all tears.”

Astonishment occupied the minds of all our friends on our return to college.  The change which took place on our feelings and conduct was indeed amazing; our mornings were devoted to gazing on a lock of our—­she was rather unfortunate in a name—­our Grizel’s hair, and to lonely hours of musing in the meadow on all the adventures of our sojourn in Devonshire.  No longer we stood listlessly in the quadrangle, joining the knots of idlers, of whom we used to be one of the chief; no longer had even Castles’ Havannahs any charms for our lips; and our whole heart was wrapt up in the expectation of a letter.  This we were not to receive for three long weeks; and by that time she was to have returned home, consulted her father on the subject of our attachment, and return us a definitive reply.  We wrote in the meantime—­such a letter!  We are assured it must have been written on a sheet of asbestos, or it must infallibly have taken fire.  It began, “Lovely and most beautiful Grizel!” and ended, “Your adorer.”  At last the letter that was to conclude all our hopes was put into our hands.  We had some men that morning to breakfast; we received it just as they were beginning the third pie.  How heartily we prayed they would he off and leave us alone!  But no—­on they kept swallowing pigeon after pigeon, and seemed to consider themselves as completely fixtures as the grate or the chimney-piece.  We wished devoutly to see a bone sticking in the throat of our most intimate friend, and, by way of getting quit of them, had thoughts of setting fire to the room.  At last, however, they departed.  Immediately as the skirt of the last one’s coat disappeared, we carefully locked and bolted our door, and, with hands trembling with joy, we took out the letter.  Not very clean was its appearance, and not over correct or well-spelt was its address; and, above all, a yellow, dingy wafer filled up the place of the green wax we had expected, and the true lover’s motto, “Though lost to sight, to memory dear,” was supplied by the impression of a thimble.  We opened it.  Horror and amazement! never was such penmanship beheld.  The lines were complete exemplifications of the line of beauty, so far as their waving, and twisting, and twining was concerned; and the orthography it was past all human comprehension to understand.