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 faded by time, and notwithstanding the great care which had obviously been taken for their preservation, they were in one or two places chafed so as to be illegible.

"It matters not," these words were written on the envelope of that which had suffered most, "I have them by heart."

With these letters was a lock of hair wrapped in a copy of verses, written obviously with a feeling which atoned, in Morton's opinion, for the roughness of the poetry, and the conceits with which it abounded, according to the taste of the period:—

Thy hue, dear pledge, is pure and bright, As in that well-remembered night, When first thy mystic braid was wove, And first my Agnes whispered love. Since then how often hast thou pressed The torrid zone of this wild breast, Whose wrath and hate have sworn to dwell With the first sin which peopled hell, A breast whose blood's a troubled ocean, Each throb the earthquake's wild commotion?—