There have been a lot of engagements in our set lately. Lottie Trevillian is going to marry Sim Carrington, and Bessie Somers has at last decided to take old Watkins--though he is twenty-five years older than she,--and then there's Cousin Maria Elmore has just turned a splendid affair with young Livingstone, really the most brilliant match of the winter. I am positively ashamed of myself, under these circumstances, to be sitting still, and unable to report progress. My old infelicity in making up my mind seems to haunt me, and I dare say I shall live to be a dreadful example. By the by, I have had a curious sort of an adventure lately. You know when I was up at Englewood visiting you last summer, I was just raving over those sonnets on Italy, which appeared in the "_Milky Way_" over the signature of "X." You remember those verses on "Fra Angelico" and the "Campanile," don't you? Well, I have found out who this X is. It's a Mr. Henderson that is now in New York, engaged on the staff of "_The Great Democracy_." We girls have noticed him once or twice walking with Jim Fellows--(you remember Jim;) Jim says he is a perfect hermit, devoted to study and writing, and never goes into society. Well, wasn't it odd that the fates should have thrown this hermit just in my way? The other morning I came over from Brooklyn, where I had been spending three days with Sophia, and when I got into the car who should I see but this identical Mr. Henderson right opposite to me. I took a quiet note of him, between whiles thinking of one or two lines in his sonnet. He is nice-looking, manly, that is, and has fine dark eyes. Well, do you know, the most provoking thing, when I came to pay my fare I found that I had no tickets nor small change--what could have possessed me to come so I can't imagine, and mamma makes it all the worse by saying it's just like me. However, he interposed and arranged it for me in the nicest and quietest way in the world. I was going up to call at Jennings', the other side of the Astor House, to see about my laces, but by the time we got there, there came on such a rain as was perfectly dreadful. My dear, it was one of those shocking affairs peculiar to New York, which really come down by the bucketful, and I had nothing for it but to cross Broadway as quick as I could to catch a Fifth Avenue omnibus, and let my lace go till a more convenient season. Well, as I stepped out into the storm, who should I find quite beside me but this gentleman, with his umbrella over my head. I could see at the moment that it had one of those quaint handles that they carve in Dieppe. We were among cars, and policemen, and trampling horses, and so on, but he got me safe into an up-town omnibus, and I felt so much obliged to him.