Page:The Clergyman's Wife.djvu/306

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BACHELORHOOD IN LOVE.


If we place beside our slight, imperfect sketch of "Maidenhood in Love," its corresponding pendant of Bachelorhood in Love, be it understood, that the latter, ruder portrait is designed solely for the contemplation of our fair young sisters throughout the land. Their lovers may naturally raise an outcry against this unceremonious lifting of the finely painted masks which they assume for the courting field, as punctiliously as knights of old, who battled for ladye love, let down their vizors for the tournament. But the alarmed wooers have little to fear from our revelations. Though we should unsparingly tear from their faces the charming counterfeit, every love-blinded maiden would refuse to recognize the beloved one's lineaments beneath; would cling to the bewitching mask, and fondly pronounce it the veritable countenance.

And yet, gentle sister, the mask your suitor wears, though it may be impalpable to you, is not less a reality. The exaltè state of mind produced by his very passion, causes—nay, compels him to

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