You know the general outline of my story, and you are acquainted sufficiently with what you call my romance of character, to find in it a constant fund of amusement when we are together; but you do not know more than this! You are not aware that the tree has adopted its decided inclination from that bias which the twig received. Nothing, I feel, can ever make me a man of fashion. Nothing, I hope, will loosen the ties which, all unseen as they are, bind me to the memory of her by whose judgment, were she living, I should desire to be directed in all things to which her admirable sense would permit her to apply those reasoning powers which never dogmatized, nor lost themselves in the mazes of imagination.—I admired my mother's taste as much as I reverenced her virtues—I respected her talents; and since her death have not met with any one capable of interesting me who did not resemble, in some degree, the character which faithful memory attaches to her much-loved image.

Different as has been your path from mine, your affectionate heart has been my best solace; and though you have been trained in the school of modern luxury, which is so little conversant with Nature, the generous impulses of your breast have not been sacrificed, and you are not yet spoiled by what is called The World. For being what you are, you are, I firmly believe, indebted in part to original structure; and perhaps, in some degree, to that friendship which has united us both at school, and at the University.—Somewhat older, and much graver than you, I have always been permitted to take the lead, and exercise an influence over your pleasures and pursuits, which, though frequently counteracted, has, notwithstanding, communicated an individuality to one and the other, that distinguishes you essentially from the heartless specimens of human mechanism that pass for men of ton.

You know what pleasant day-dreams occupy my fancy—I anticipate nothing less than your radical reform, from all the follies which sometimes obscure your good sense; and I look for this change, not as the result of a Hohenlohe miracle, wrought upon you through the intercession of the Irish priesthood, but as the natural effect of living domesticated with such a family as I conceive to be now about to welcome you at Glenalta. I know your charming aunt and cousins only through their letters to you; but by "these presents," I feel that I cannot be mistaken in the attributes with which I have invested them: and, laugh as you like, you know that my castles are all built with materials from the county of Kerry, in Ireland; and I only say, if it be enthusiasm to love and venerate a set of people whom I have never seen—yes, and fully to intend, if life be spared me, to make a pilgrimage in quest of your relations, inspired by as much zeal as ever actuated the followers of Mahomet in their pious journeys to Mecca, why, let me cry with Falstaff, "God help the wicked." A sort of internal evidence quite incommunicable to any one else, assures me, that my fate is linked with that of the Douglas family; and I can give you no better reason for this belief, than the improbability that so much sympathy as draws me towards Glenalta, should be thrown away.

However baseless you may consider the fabric of my visions, you can at least imagine that, while they possess my mind, they are not a little interesting; and therefore I conclude, as I began, by entreating that you will feed my Quixotism with journals containing the most accurate and minute accounts of all that is said and done, planned and projected, at that Ultima Thule, as you call it, whither you are bending your steps.

The gun is fired as a signal for sailing—I see an army of carpet-bags and portmanteaus in full march, and must say—farewell! God bless you, my dear Howard.

Your affectionate
Charles Falkland.

LETTER II.
Miss Douglas to Miss Sandford.

Dearest Julia,

Glenalta.

Your letter, which I received yesterday, reproaches me with silence, and I plead guilty to the charge, though you are very wrong in supposing that my failure in punctuality proceeds from weariness of communion with you. I have very few correspondents, and amongst these few I rejoice to say, that there is not one, to whom I write from any other motive than because I love and value every species of intercourse with those who are really dear to my heart. I know that it is only necessary to tell you, that I have been much engaged, to be certain of your forgiveness; but I should not satisfy myself if I did not say how I have been occupied.

Shut out as we are from the gay world, and living for weeks together without any interruption to our pursuits, even you may perhaps wonder that time is not a burthen on our hands. Yet this is not the case; but on the contrary, the day appears scarcely set in before it has arrived at its close. Is this always the effect of full employment, or is it peculiar to the little circle at Glenalta to wish that the sun would stand still, and give more of his company?—I am too little acquainted with people and places beyond my own home to answer the question; and you are not here to do it for me; so now I will proceed with the causes of my long silence.

Our dear friend, and invaluable neighbour, Mr. Otway, has been ill: thank heaven, he is quite recovered now.—This dear friend and your aunt are, I think, the only people on earth who for the last twelve years could have poured the balm of comfort into the desolate spirit of my beloved mother—the latter in becoming a tender parent to you and your sisters has had too much care connected with her immediate duties to admit of her being often with us; but what she, under different circumstances, might have been, Mr. Otway has been; and what can we ever do sufficiently to prove our gratitude, as well as our affection? During his illness, which continued for three months, we shared, not only the task of nursing him with unremitting assiduity, but endeavoured to supply his place by undertaking the labours which, for a series of years, he has imposed upon himself. We took care of his schools, we visited his sick poor, we distributed his benefactions, became his deputies on the roads and in the fields; and resolved that, on his return to his gardens and plantations, he should find all things meeting him with that pleasant welcome which even the inanimate world is enabled to testify, when the hand of diligent affection has taught every shrub and flower to glow with its own emotions!—I know nothing more touching than such a reception, which needs no words to convince the object of our solicitude, how constantly the heart has been occupied in an endeavour to please by the cultivation of whatever might confer enjoyment; and the suppression of all that would be productive of pain.

Though one of the actors in the scene, I will confess to you, that the success of our efforts was complete. There was no arrangement—no display that appeared to solicit thanks for our faithful stewardship; but I never shall forget the happiness of seeing tears, not of grief, stealing from my mother's eyes, while our dear friend, leaning upon her arm on one side, and Frederick's on the other—Charlotte, Fanny, and I, bringing up the rear—took his first walk upon the terrace which commands that panorama of loveliness and expanse which you admired so much in your visit at Glenalta, to which my mind frequently recurs as the most joyful