one's possession as being wholly one's own, and not a possession which
all the public are invited to admire. I can readily understand how a
rich man, who has what is called a show place, in which the splendid
rooms and the stately gardens are open to all inspectors, so that he
has no privacy in his own demesnes, runs away to a pretty cottage
which he has all to himself, and of which he can say, "/This/ is home;
/this/ is all mine."

But there are some kinds of beauty which are eminently show
places,--which the public think they have as much a right to admire as
the owner has; and the show place itself would be dull and perhaps
fall out of repair, if the public could be excluded from the sight of
it.

The beauty of Cecilia Travers is not that of a show place. There is a
feeling of safety in her. If Desdemona had been like her, Othello
would not have been jealous. But then Cecilia would not have deceived
her father; nor I think have told a blackamoor that she wished "Heaven
had made her such a man." Her mind harmonizes with her person: it is
a companionable mind. Her talents are not showy, but, take them
altogether, they form a pleasant whole: she has good sense enough in
the practical affairs of life, and enough of that ineffable womanly
gift called tact to counteract the effects of whimsical natures like
mine, and yet enough sense of the humouristic views of life not to
take too literally all that a whimsical man like myself may say. As
to temper, one never knows what a woman's temper is--till one puts her
out of it. But I imagine hers, in its normal state, to be serene, and
disposed to be cheerful. Now, my dear father, if you were not one of
the cleverest of men you would infer from this eulogistic mention of
Cecilia Travers that I was in love with her. But you no doubt will