MY DEAR SIR:  Do you care anything for the opinion of my humble sex, I wonder?  The humblest of your wondering admirers is driven beyond the bounds of feminine modesty, sir, to tell you that what you do not write she no longer cares to read.  I was the first to detect—­I claim that honour—­such letters by Publius as were not by your hand, and while I would not disparage efforts so conscientious, they seem to me like dawn to sunrise.  Is this idle flattery?  Ah, sir!  I too am greatly flattered.  I do not want for admirers.  Nor can I hope to know—­to know—­so great and busy a man.  But my restless vanity, sir, compels me to force myself upon your notice.  I should die if I passed another day unknown to the man who gives me the greatest pleasures of my life—­I have every line you have had printed that can be found, and half the booksellers in the country searching for the lost copies of the Continentalist—­I should die, I say, if you were longer ignorant that I have the intelligence, the ambition, and the erudition to admire you above all men, living or dead.  For that is my pride, sir.  Perchance I was born for politics; at all events you have made them my passion, and I spend my days converting Clintonians to your cause.  Do not scorn my efforts.  It is not every day that a woman turns a man’s thoughts from love to patriotism; I have heard that ’tis oftenest the other way.  But I take your time, and hasten to subscribe myself, my dear sir,

     Your humble and obd’t servant

     ELIZA CAPET CROIX.

The absence of superfluous capitals and of underscoring in this letter, alone would have arrested his attention, for even men of a less severe education than himself were liberal in these resources, and women were prodigal.  The directness and precision were also remarkable, and he recalled that she was but nineteen.  The flattery touched him, no doubt, for he was very human; and despite the brevity of his leisure, he read the note twice, and devoted a moment to conjecture.

“She is cleverer, even, than Lady Kitty, or Susan and Kitty Livingston, by this,” he mused.  “She would be worth knowing, did a driven mortal but have the time to idle in the wake of so much intelligence—­and beauty.  Not to answer this were unpardonable—­I cannot allow the lady to die.”  He wrote her a brief note of graceful acknowledgement, which caused Mrs. Croix to shed tears of exultation and vexation.  He acknowledged her but breathed no fervid desire for another letter.  It is not to be expected that maturest nineteen can realize that, although a busy man will find time to see a woman if it be worth his while, the temptations to a romantic correspondence are not overwhelming.

Hamilton tore up the letter and threw it into the waste basket.  Its perfume, delicate but imperious, intruded upon his brief.  He dived into the basket as he heard Troup’s familiar whistle, and thrust the pieces into a breast pocket.  In a moment he remembered that Betsey’s head would be pillowed upon that pocket at five in the afternoon, and he hastily extracted the mutilated letter, and applied a match to it, consigning women to perdition.  Troup sniffed as he entered the room.