Doubtless the letter was never sent, but I am sure it was written each time with an iron resolve to send it.

Its title in the excellent book was "From a Lover to a Father on his Attachment to the Daughter," and it ran:-- =DEAR SIR: As I scorn to act in any manner that may bring reproach upon myself and family, and hold clandestine proceedings unbecoming in any man of character, I take the liberty of distinctly avowing my love for your daughter and humbly request your permission to pay her my addresses, as I flatter myself my family and expectancies will be found not unworthy of your notice.

I have some reason to imagine that I am not altogether disagreeable to your daughter, but I assure you that I have not as yet endeavored to win her affections, for fear it might be repugnant to a father's will.

I am, etc.= Under this was provided "A Favorable Answer," in which Sam Murdock might have said that he had long perceived this thing and applauded it, and would the young man "dine with us to-morrow at six if you are not engaged, and you will then have an opportunity to plead your own cause." But chillingly after this graceful assent followed an "Unfavorable Answer," which Sam Murdock would also see when he opened the book at page 251; and still more portentously on the same page was a letter which Miss Selina Murdock herself might choose to write him, a sickening and dreadful thing entitled, "Unfavorable Reply on the Ground of Poverty." "To say that I do not feel pleased and flattered at your proposal would be to tell a useless untruth," the thing began speciously.

"But how are we situated, what hope of happiness with our unsettled prospects and worse than small means?
Industry has doubtless never been and never will be wanting on your part, but--" and so to its dreadful end.