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Helen Somerville -- I think she died early also of con-
sumption -- My other sweetheart affair was a more serious
matter -- My dear little sister Julia had for a roommate, a
young lady named Priscilla Cherokee, Taylor Hill-; a pretty
girl, with plump rosy cheeks, & bands of beautiful dark hair --
I fell very much in love with her-, but was far too bashful
to tell her so-; I let her know of it through my sister-; &
she, reciprocating the feeling, did likewise-; and we set up
a clandestine correspondence, through sister Julia -- Many
loving billets-doux passed between us-; she gave me a Star in
the Great Bear-, as our Star -- named Benetnasch -- and she
gave me a little book of poems-; the style of which led me to
think afterwards that there was mischief in her -- I made a
little box with a spring lock, of my own manufacture, in which
I kept hidden, all of her little notes -- Foolish boy that I
was -- to think that my spring lock would keep father from
discovering what was going on -- He "Smelt a mouse"-; found
my love box-; picked the lock-, and one day of direful memory,
brought me to task with a severity that overwhelmed all love
passages betwixt Miss Priscilla & myself --

-- I wilted -- was melancholy for a while -- Miss Priscilla
left school soon afterwards, and before long was married to a
young lawyer, with a very long nose-, named Vanhoose --

I passed through a remarkable religious experience in the
fall of 1843 -- when I was 16 1/2 years old -- I was kept at home
one Sunday by a light attack of the measles -- In the afternoon,