me.

"What a fortunate being I am!" thought I, "blessed with such a sister and
such a friend! I have only to find out this amiable Unknown, to wed her,
and be happy! What a paradise will be my home, graced with a partner of
such exquisite refinement! It will be a perfect fairy bower, buried among
sweets and roses. Sophy shall live with us, and be the companion of all our
enjoyments. Glencoe, too, shall no more be the solitary being that he now
appears. He shall have a home with us. He shall have his study, where, when
he pleases, he may shut himself up from the world, and bury himself in his
own reflections. His retreat shall be sacred; no one shall intrude there;
no one but myself, who will visit him now and then, in his seclusion, where
we will devise grand schemes together for the improvement of mankind. How
delightfully our days will pass, in a round of rational pleasures and
elegant employments! Sometimes we will have music; sometimes we will read;
sometimes we will wander through the flower garden, when I will smile with
complacency on every flower my wife has planted; while in the long winter
evenings the ladies will sit at their work, and listen with hushed
attention to Glencoe and myself, as we discuss the abstruse doctrines of
metaphysics."

From this delectable reverie, I was startled by my father's slapping me on
the shoulder. "What possesses the lad?" cried he; "here have I been
speaking to you half a dozen times, without receiving an answer."

"Pardon me, sir," replied I; "I was so completely lost in thought, that I
did not hear you."

"Lost in thought! And pray what were you thinking of? Some of your
philosophy, I suppose."