Jefferson In Love

"VVlien he had been at homo three weeks he wrote a short letter, which shows him reduced to a sorry plight indeed. He was torn witli the contest raging in his soul betwocn his passion and his judgmcnt, and he plunges into a letter, as it were, headforemost, seeking relief in converse with his friend, witli whom he had been accustomed to exchange sueh confidences : " Dear Page, to teil you the plain truth, I have not a syllable to write to you about " ; which was a lóver's way of stating that his heart was full to bur.sting. " I do not conceive," he continúes, " that anything can happen in niy world which you would give a curse to know." The icorlds of these two friends were indeed unlike; tor John Page, heir to one of tho largest estates, lived in the largest mansion of all Virginia, - fiosowell, - which stands to this day near the banks of the York River, a vast, square barrack, trceless, fencoless, dismantled, a pile without inhabit ant, a picture of desolation. " All things here," the distracted lover went on, " ap]ear to me to trudge on in one and the same round ; we rise in the morning that wc m;iy eat broakfast, dinner and supper, and go to bed again that we may get up the next morning and do the samo ; so that you never saw two peas more alike than our yesterday and to-da}'." It' he had nothing to teil, he had plen ty to ask. A jury of lovers would have pronounccd his situation sorious in the extreme. He was enamored of a beauty and an heiress ; sho, in the full lustre of her charms ; he, a youth not twenty, of smal} estáte heavily burdenod, reading the oleincnl :u y book of a profession requiring years of preparation. Moreover he had the usual uream of foreign travel. Before settling ' j the business of life, he meant to visit 3 'ngland, Holland, Franoe, Spain, Italy,- v.hore he would bny a "good fiddle," - a,nd then cross to Egypt, returning hoino by the way of the St. Lawrenee and Canada. Such a tour would require two or three years. Would she waitr1 Couldhe ask her to wait? Sho must love him very much to do that, and he did not know that she loved him at all ; for tho wateh-paper meant nothing particular, indicating frii'iully feeliug, nothing more. What would dear Page advise ? Should he go at once to town, receive his sentonce, and end this awful suspense ? Inclination prompted this course ; but if she rejected him, he would be " ten times more wretched than ever." In this dilerania, he hadsome thoughts of going to Pctorsburg, " if the actors go thero in May," and keeping on to Williamsburg for the birthiiight ball at the Apollo, which, ot course, ahe would attond. But, after all, had not lio and Page bettcr go abroad at once for a two or throe yoars' tour? " If we should not botli be cured of lovo in tml timo, I think the Devil would bo in