'No, thank you, I will keep to my own line of business. What is that
blotted one? It looks rather awful, to judge by the ink,' asked Mrs
Jo, who beguiled her daily task by trying to guess from the outside
what was inside her many letters. This proved to be a poem from an
insane admirer, to judge by its incoherent style.



'TO J.M.B.

'Oh, were I a heliotrope,
I would play poet,
And blow a breeze of fragrance
To you; and none should know it.

'Your form like the stately elm
When Phoebus gilds the morning ray;
Your cheeks like the ocean bed
That blooms a rose in May.

'Your words are wise and bright,
I bequeath them to you a legacy given;
And when your spirit takes its flight,
May it bloom aflower in heaven.

'My tongue in flattering language spoke,
And sweeter silence never broke
in busiest street or loneliest glen.
I take you with the flashes of my pen.