I remember well the time Agnes first met Mr. Preston. We were on a visit one summer to some friends together, and while there we met with this accomplished gentleman. How delighted were we both with him, and how enthusiastically did we chant to each other his praises, when in our own room we assisted each other in undressing for the night, or decking ourselves for the gay dinner or evening party. We met with many other gentlemen, and agreeable ones too, on this eventful visit, but Mr. Preston was a star of the first magnitude. I was a few years Agnes' junior, and well satisfied with the attentions I received from the other gentlemen, who deigned to notice so tiny a body as I was; but Mr. Preston soon singled out Agnes. He walked, rode and drove with her: hung over her enraptured when she sung, and listened with earnestness to every word that fell from her lips. She was "many fathom deep in love" ere she knew it--poor girl--and how exquisitely beautiful did this soul's dawning cause her lovely face to appear. The wind surely was not answerable for those burning cheeks and bright, dancing eyes, which she bore after returning from long rides, during which Mr. Preston was her constant companion--and the treasured sprigs of jessamine and verveine which she stored away in the leaves of her journal, after a moonlight ramble in the conservatory, with the same fascinating attendant--did not love cause all this? Naughty love, can the moments of rapture, exquisite though they be, which thou givest, atone for the months and years of deep heart-rending wretchedness which so often ensues?