"You will not be much surprised, my dear friend, at receiving a letter of congratulation from me on your appointment. Merit is not always overlooked. Happy is it for our country, that there are sometimes in the ministry men of integrity and discernment. Pa is quite delighted at the thought of your good fortune. He says, and I believe him, that no man better deserves it, and that no man will or can better discharge the duties of that situation. But have you forgot us, my dearest friend? You have not favored us with one single call since your return from the circuit. Now I mention the circuit, let me thank you in the name and on the behalf of the sex in general, for your most excellent and powerful speech in the celebrated action for breach of promise. Every body talked about it; it gave universal satisfaction and delight. Oh! if such pure principles as yours were more common, fewer would be the broken hearts, and fewer the miseries of our weak confiding sex. But I must not detain you from your important avocations by my foolish scribbling, I bid you therefore adieu for the present, hoping soon to enjoy the felicity of seeing you again, if you can spare a moment for so insignificant a being as REBECCA HENDERSON." This letter was not very argumentative, but Markham felt it to be unanswerable: and as the young gentleman was not addicted to swearing, he did not curse his ill fortune; and as he was not a believer in astrology, he said not a word in blame of his stars. But he thought he had been making a fool of himself; and he also thought, that if he did not make himself a greater fool, the world would be apt to say that he had made a fool of Miss Henderson. The world is a difficult thing to manage. It never knows when it is pleased; it quarrels with us for trifles, blames for virtues, urges us to folly, laughs at our perplexities, cares nothing for our misfortunes, and sets us into a state of fermentation and agitation we scarcely know what about. Markham had a great respect for the world, because he wished the world to have some respect for him. Morally speaking, it is very good to have some regard to the world's opinion; it is the religion of a great majority of the human species. It keeps in awe and good order many a one who would otherwise run out into great and grievous extravagancies. Markham, for a man of conscience, was rather too much devoted to the idolatry of the world's opinion: he was so unreasonable as to wish to have the world's good opinion, and his own too. This made him frequently anxious and uneasy. He certainly could have escaped from his present dilemma without much difficulty, if he had not been strongly moved by the thought of what the world would say. That influenced him most powerfully. He was grieved at the idea, that he must be subject to reproach, or undergo captivity for life. If he had consulted his own conscience, that would have told him, that as he had no intention