Still protesting against the manifest indelicacy of the revelation, Roswell has told for us the story of his first advances upon the citadel of Mary’s affections in words as cunningly chosen as were ever the best passages in the writings of his son Eugene.  It was on the evening of September 13th that these advances first passed the outworks of formal civility.  “When bidding the said Mary Almira good-night in the sitting-room of Mrs. French, as he was about to retire into his lodgings, Roswell plucked a leaf from the rosebush in the room, kissed it, and presented it to her; on the next day when he saw the said Mary Almira she took from her bosom a paper, unfolded it, and showed Roswell a leaf (the same, he supposes, that was presented the evening before), neatly stitched on the paper, and which she again carefully folded and replaced in her bosom.”

Another evening they played at chess, and with her permission Roswell named the queen Miss Almira, and he bent all his energies to the capture of that particular piece.  He sacrificed every point of the game to that object, and when it was triumphantly achieved, “took note of the pleasure and delight manifested by said Mary Almira at the ardor with which he pursued his object and kissed his prize.”  On still another occasion “Jeremiah was introduced into the game as a black bishop, but very soon was exchanged for a pawn.”

On the day when Roswell advised Mary that it would be imprudent for her to accompany Justice Jonathan to Westminster, she was “graciously pleased to make, with her own fair hand, a pocket pin-cushion of blue silk and to put the same into Roswell’s hands, at the same time remarking that blue was the emblem of love and constancy,” and Roswell “confesses that he received the same with a profound bow.”

They were now in the rapids, with Jeremiah forgotten on the bank.

Roswell complimented “the beauty of said Almira’s hair, whereupon she graciously consented to present him with a lock of the same, and he humbly confesses that he accepted, kissed, and pressed it to his heart.”

Next morning, as they stood side by side, with Roswell holding her hand “and carelessly turning over the leaves of a Bible,” his eye accidentally rested on this passage of the book of Jeremiah:  “As for me, behold, I am in your hand:  do with me as seemeth good and meet unto you.”  And “thereupon he pointed out such text to said Mary Almira, and she responded to the same with a blush and a smile.”  Roswell further confessed, “that with the kind permission of said Mary Almira he did at various times press the hand of said Mary Almira, and with her like gracious permission did kiss her hand, her cheek, and her lips.”  Who, with such kind and gracious permission, would have confined himself to remarks about the weather?

Such were the only “artifices and persuasions, ways and means” by which Roswell came between Mary Almira and the promise she had made to the absent Jeremiah—­the same ways and means that have been employed from the days of Adam, and which will be successful while woman is fair and man is bold.  It was Roswell’s belief that “his attentions and addresses were from the first agreeable to Mary’s feelings and welcome to her heart,” and he swore “that they were always permitted and received with great kindness and sweetness of manner.”