became known to her. Agnes’ choice surprised us all. Evart Berkely was a young merchant reputed wealthy, but not at all agreeable or pleasing to my fancy. He was handsome and tolerably intelligent—had been well educated and had traveled abroad, bringing with him from his travels various “foreign airs and graces,” which did not improve his agreeability to my taste. He was certainly much inferior to Agnes in point of intellect; but she loved him nevertheless. I always thought him a cold, calculating man, and the passionate love he expressed for my beautiful friend seemed so unnatural, falling from his cold unexpressive lips. Mr. Lincoln was at first as much dissatisfied and surprised at Agnes’ choice as the rest of her friends; but when he discovered how completely her whole heart was given up to this infatuation, as he could make no serious objection to the gentleman, he quickly quieted all expressions of disapprobation, and only stipulated that their engagement should be a long one, pleading his wife’s health and his own lonely state as excuses. The lover, of course, was impatient at these obstacles, but Agnes, always alive to her father’s happiness, steadily refused to shorten the period of two years, decided upon by her father. Evart was a devoted lover, and seemed to exist only in the presence of his mistress; and dear Agnes was so supremely happy—I fancifully imagined her beauty increased under this new influence of love. She had been engaged to Evart Berkely about a year, when one evening we all met at Mr. Lincoln’s, on our way to a gay private ball. I had always gone into society with Agnes and Mr. Lincoln; for my mother dying while I was quite a young girl, my father had been so deeply affected by her death—as she had been to him companion, guide, and comforter—that he avoided all society, and sought consolation in close application to his profession. He had been from boyhood on the closest terms of intimacy with Mr. Lincoln, and willingly consented that I should accompany Agnes on her entrance into society, under Mr. Lincoln’s care. Accordingly, on the night I allude to, I had been driven to Mr. Lincoln’s, that I might be one of their party. I particularize this one evening, for it was the most eventful night of Agnes’ life—the turning point in her existence. Events occurred on that night which gave the stamp and impress to her future. I remember thinking, as I looked upon her, after the completion of her toilette, that I had never seen her so magnificently beautiful. Her father and lover were rather gorgeous in their tastes, and to please them Agnes always dressed with more splendor than accorded with her own fancy; but the peculiar style of her beauty was well suited to this manner of dressing. Her tall, full form could well bear the heavy folds of rich drapery that always swept around her, and the brilliant jewels that gleamed and flashed in her dark hair, and on her snowy throat and