The morning of the new year is dawning as brightly as winter morning may, and Christian is up again among her household, preparing for the great event of the day. Mary and Robert are still employed in their personal adornments, and James, waiting for his graver sister, watches the door in terror for their entry; but Christian at last leads the bridegroom away, and bids the merry youthful couple follow, and James will not forget, for many a year of the new life on which he is about to enter, the gentle sisterly counsel which he now receives: how unselfish, how generous she is! His future wife may be a sister in name, but she can never be so in spirit; Christian knows that well, but how sweetly she speaks of her, how warmly she encourages her brother’s affection, how gently she leads his thoughts to his new duties, and urges upon him, in admonitory yet tender kindness, their lasting obligation. His home will be a happy one, if he becomes what Christian wishes and presses him to be. Mr. Melville fancies that there could not, by any chance, be a better arrangement than James’s marriage with Elizabeth Rutherford, the only daughter of his wealthy partner; so natural at once, and business-like, for James of course, will just step into the place vacated by his worthy seniors, when their time comes to depart from Exchange and counting-house: a most excellent arrangement; Elizabeth is a pretty girl too, a little gay perhaps, but time will remedy and quiet that. Christian said some foolish thing about the Rutherfords being vain worldly people, but Christian always spoke foolishly on such subjects. There could not have been a better arrangement, and armed with this deliverance of paternal wisdom, James had been a successful wooer and suitor, and gay Elizabeth Rutherford will be Christian’s sister to-day. We leave the wedding, with all its vows, and pomps, and ceremony, to the imagination of the gentle reader. It will suffice to say, that James was married, and that all went off as well and as merrily as is usually the case. But it is now the new year’s night and Christian is at home, and there, lying on her own table, at her own corner of the cheerful fireside, lies a prize; “a letter from Halbert!” Christian has thrown herself into a chair, and is busy unfolding the precious document, and little Mary’s bright eyes are sparkling over her shoulder; but we must not describe Halbert’s epistle, we shall rather give it _in extenso_. “MY DEAR CHRISTIAN,