for Bentley was an excellent character, but I may truly say, that many who fill a much larger circle than he did in the world’s estimation, would not have left such a chasm in society. To the poor, his loss would be irreparable, were it not that he leaves in George a representative so worthy of him. Oh! when I reflect upon the habit which prevails so generally at present, of taking young people abroad, educating them in distant climes, alienating their minds from the land that gave them birth, and forming their tastes to foreign manners; when I compare this dismal error, and its consequences, with the scene which we are contemplating at Mount Prospect, surely there is reason to apprehend a fatal overthrow for our hapless country. How few George Bentleys are ready to succeed the present generation amongst us! I have seen much of the world in _my day_, but have latterly lived in such abstraction from its vices and its follies, that they strike me with almost as much wonder in their modern dress, as if I had not before been familiar with their features. True it is, that they are to be found everywhere, and the deepest retirement is not necessarily virtuous, _because_ it is solitary; but the fashionable community of the present day seems to “out-Herod Herod” in all that marks the absence of head and heart. These dear young people are quite an affecting study. I never saw such purity in mortal mould as breathes around them. Each seems to be provided by nature with a _safety lamp_ that preserves them from contact with the noxious miasma of a vicious world; and I should be repaid for much greater dereliction from my usual habits than I submit to here, by the pleasure which I derive from the unsophisticated singleness, instinctive modesty, and fine feeling of my youthful associates, to whom it has fallen to my lot to act the part of _Chaperone_. Never had _Duenna_ reason to be prouder of a trust than I have of the charge confided to my care; and my vanity has cause of excitement in full proportion with my pride, as the charm of nature in the midst of an artificial society is irresistibly refreshing, like the admittance of Heaven’s sweet breath, the pure mountain breeze, into a heated atmosphere, loaded with the costly, but insalubrious exhalation of a thousand perfumes. _You_ are so much a part of the Glenalta family, through the claims of a long acquaintance and mutual regard, that I do not feel as if I were betraying the delicacy of my young friend Emily Douglas, in telling you of the proof which we have just received of her total indifference to rank and fortune. Two days ago, General Douglas was applied to _in form_ on the part of an old Baronet in this neighbourhood, who requested permission to announce his only son in quality of suitor to his niece, promising that nothing should be wanting in the liberality of settlements to render the proposed alliance agreeable to the young lady and her mother. I need scarcely