This letter, if not melancholy in its commencement, will surely be tinged with a very gloomy colouring ere its close, for the day of departure is at hand, and to quit Glenalta is no easy matter, I assure you. Poor Russell and Annesley left us the day before yesterday. I told you that I expected to be informed of Charlotte's reply to certain questions which I felt confident would be _put_; but I miscalculated: however, silence tells _some_ tales, it is said, as well as language, and so in this case I found it. It was plain to _my_ eyes, and others too amongst our party, that Russell chose his opportunity while we were loitering about the Glen, to make his proposals, which were evidently met in a feeling not _sympathetic_: an increased _activity_ of countenance told me this. It would be injustice to call it anger, but there was an expression of eye, and a bright spot on each cheek-bone, that seemed to indicate a very honest surprise, mingled with what the peasants here comically call the "least taste in life," of indignation. If I am _right_, this is all in the strict _keeping_ with Russell's character. You and I long ago decreed that he would never die of _love_, notwithstanding all his enthusiasm about soft music. No; Russell loves his _own_ emotions better than the object who excites them; and though I just feel sufficient _esprit de corps_ not in _general_ to like an individual of the other sex better for having made one of our own look _foolish_, yet I am sincerely glad that Charlotte has not accepted our friend; first, because she would not be happy if she married him, and secondly, because I _do_ think that just such a _hitch_ will do him good. He is a fine honest-hearted fellow, and has a great deal of taste; but he surely knows it rather too well, or at least he _shews_ that he does so, too much. Perhaps, more truth-telling than his neighbours, _he_ only expresses what others have art enough to conceal. You will say that I am catching infection, and growing _acrid_ in the society of old Bentley: it may be so; but I tell you _all_ my remarks.