Whether I blush or not is not for me to tell; but surely I feel that I ought to do so. Yes, it is an absolute fact, that I am ashamed to recollect the date of my last letter; and, therefore, if you please, we will hush it up. All that I will put forward in extenuation of my guilt is, that my journal bears weighty evidence to the truth of your not being forgotten. In that faithful repository you will find, one of these days, a minute registry of all that passes; and I promise myself much amusement at some future time in recalling to my own mind, while I read it to you, this record of the happiest period of my life. Hey day! here is a downright confession. Even so: and I am not inclined to retract the avowal. As I am not in love, (at least I do not _believe_ that I am,) I suppose that I have less hesitation in proclaiming the state of my feelings than were Dan Cupid to be a witness to the declaration of my being more at home at Glenalta, and more happy with the Douglas family, than I ever felt at any place, and amongst any people, since I was born. I find one great disadvantage in having lost the thread of my good old diary, for I know not now where to begin or what to tell you, though I would have you to know that my difficulty does not arise from paucity of incident. On the contrary, my time has been so occupied, and so many novelties have varied the scene, that I am, to use a homely illustration, in the predicament of "not being able to see the wood for trees." The _ground tint_ of life at Glenalta is soft and reposing, without being dead; and it has latterly been _picked_ out (my simile savours, you will say, of Long Acre) by sundry events which have given contrast to its colouring. You are to be informed that I am up to the eyes in all the pursuits which afford constant delight to the Cousins: and would you believe that from morning till night I am never conscious of time, except by its rapid flight? Falkland, I am awakened as if from a heavy sleep, which had dulled my faculties, and my mind seems to take new views of everything. Will this last? If it should, the age of man is doubled by the animation of such feelings as have been evolved in this Irish world. I tread on air--the sun shines into my _heart_--and you will never hear me again envying an opium-eater while I live. In three days we set out for Killarney; and, as I will certainly devote a letter exclusively to the _Lakes_, this shall contain a sketch of some minor exploits in the way of sight-seeing. But I ought not to have proceeded thus far without saying that our Fred. returned, after his short absence, wreathed with victory; and I would give more than I am worth to have been able to call back the shade of Titian by some magical incantation, that his glowing pencil might have _fixed_ that arrival in perennial freshness. Domestic love, what an exquisite painter thou art! Not all the most skilful efforts of factitious refinement can group and touch like this artist of Nature.