I am called off from public dissertations by a domestic affair of great importance, which is no less than the disposal of my sister Jenny for life. The girl is a girl of great merit and pleasing conversation: but I being born of my father's first wife, and she of his third, she converses with me rather like a daughter than a sister. I have indeed told her that if she kept her honour, and behaved herself in such a manner as became the Bickerstaffs, I would get her an agreeable man for her husband; which was a promise I made her after reading a passage in Pliny's "Epistles." That polite author had been employed to find out a consort for his friend's daughter, and gives the following character of the man he had pitched upon. "Aciliano plurimum vigoris et industriae quanquam in maxima verecundia: est illi facies liberalis, multo sanguine, multo rubore, suffusa: est ingenua totius corporis pulchritudo et quidam senatorius decor, quae ego nequaquam arbitror negligenda: debet enim hoc castitati puellarum quasi praemium dari." "Acilianus," for that was the gentleman's name, "is a man of extraordinary vigour and industry, accompanied with the greatest modesty: he has very much of the gentleman, with a lively colour, and flush of health in his aspect. His whole person is finely turned, and speaks him a man of quality; which are qualifications that, I think, ought by no means to be overlooked, and should be bestowed on a daughter as the reward of her chastity." A woman that will give herself liberties need not put her parents to so much trouble; for if she does not possess these ornaments in a husband she can supply herself elsewhere. But this is not the case of my sister Jenny, who, I may say without vanity, is as unspotted a spinster as any in Great Britain. I shall take this occasion to recommend the conduct of our own family in this particular.