All this while, John sat up with his heart beating very fast, writing
all about his engagement to his sister, and, up to this point, his
nearest, dearest, most confidential friend. It is almost too bad to
copy the letter of a shy man who finds himself in love for the first
time in his life; but we venture to make an extract:--

"It is not her beauty merely that drew me to her, though she is the
most beautiful human being I ever saw: it is the exquisite feminine
softness and delicacy of her character, that sympathetic pliability by
which she adapts herself to every varying feeling of the heart. You,
my dear sister, are the noblest of women, and your place in my
heart is still what it always was; but I feel that this dear little
creature, while she fills a place no other has ever entered, will yet
be a new bond to unite us. She will love us both; she will gradually
come into all our ways and opinions, and be insensibly formed by us
into a noble womanhood. Her extreme beauty, and the great admiration
that has always followed her, have exposed her to many temptations,
and caused most ungenerous things to be said of her.

"Hitherto she has lived only in the fashionable world; and her
literary and domestic education, as she herself is sensible, has been
somewhat neglected.

"But she longs to retire from all this; she is sick of fashionable
folly, and will come to us to be all our own. Gradually the charming
circle of cultivated families which form our society will elevate her
taste, and form her mind.

"Love is woman's inspiration, and love will lead her to all that is