How I cursed the
slowness of the good women, who seemed never to have done reckoning the
change into his hand! Before the postman rang at my fathers door I had
already flown downstairs, crossed the vestibule, and stood panting at
the door. While the old man fumbled among his letters, I strove to
discover the envelope of fine post paper, and the pretty English
handwriting that distinguished my treasure among all the coarse papers
and clumsy superscriptions of commercial or vulgar letters. I seized it
with a trembling hand; my eyes swam, my heart beat, and my legs refused
their office. I hid the letter in my bosom for fear of meeting some one
on the stairs; and lest so frequent a correspondence should appear
suspicious to my mother, I would run into my room and bolt my door, so
as to devour the pages at leisure, without fear of interruption. How
many tears and kisses I impressed on the paper! Alas, when many years
afterwards I opened the volume of these letters, how many words effaced
by my lips, and that my tears or my transports had washed or torn out,
were wanting to the sense of many sentences!
LII.
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