“I write to you, my dear cousin, because I want you to inform my father of an event which may not be altogether pleasing to him, but which you can soften away so as to quiet any irritation he may feel. You perhaps know, Minnie, that he has always wished _you_ to become my wife, indeed I partly made him a promise to that effect, ages ago, at the time when you and I had some boy-and-girl love-passages—do you remember them, my little cousin? or have you forgotten our moonlight rambles, and all our juvenile love-making when I first returned from Europe. It seems to me like a far-off dream, and yet it was only ten or twelve years ago. Well—I was a romantic boy then, and you as romantic a little girl—my father always liked you, and fearing I might be led into bondage by some strange Delilah, he wanted to make a match between us. My mother, poor soul, liked your housewifery, and so she joined in the plot. Had we been married _then_, Minnie, we might have been a quiet, comfortable couple, treading in the footsteps of my honored parents; I, daily growing pursy and plethoric, you a matron, in all the dignity of lace-caps, growing more learned every year in the management of children and the making up of baby-linen. When I look back at the past, Minnie, I can almost find it in my heart to wish it had been so. But perhaps it is best as it is. If under the excitement of my boyish passion I ever said any thing to you, Minnie, which could involve any bond between us, I pray you to forgive me, and to attribute it entirely to my ignorance of my own nature. We have lived on terms of the closest intimacy ever since I found you, a little sick and suffering child, without a friend or protector in the wide world. It has been a bond closer than that of brother and sister, because it had much of the peculiar piquancy which belongs only to that sweetest of all relationships, which early entitled me to call you my little cousin. But I am dallying with old recollections, when I should be telling you of coming events. I am going to be married, Minnie; you will wonder when I tell you that my bride has not yet counted her eighteenth summer. She is the prettiest little fairy in the world, and as artless as a child, indeed she has not been _out_ in society, so I have plucked the flower with the morning dew yet fresh upon it. My father will object to her youth, and will conjure up the image of my mother, armed with her bunch of keys, the insignia of her old-fashioned housekeeping. But you must make my peace with him, Minnie. My intention at present is to take furnished lodgings in New York, where I can be near my business, which I mean to resume as soon as this affair is settled. You will of course remain with my father and watch over his declining years, unless you should marry, when I shall take care that a suitable provision be made for you. And now, my dear cousin, having wearied you, doubtless, as well as myself, with this long epistle, I bid