“Tobolsk, ---- 18--. “My dear Alexis,--I embrace a good opportunity to send you letters, and thus to advise you of the state of things here. You will first desire to know how it is with Kathinka and me. We get on more comfortably than I could have hoped. Your sister excites my admiration every day of her life. She is, in the first place, cheerful under circumstances which might naturally beget gloom in the heart of a young lady, brought up in the centre of fashion, surrounded with every luxury, and accustomed to all the soft speeches that beauty could excite, or flattery devise. She is industrious, though bred up in the habit of doing nothing for herself, and of having her slightest wish attended to by the servants. She is humble, though she has been taught from infancy to remember that aristocratic blood flows in her veins. She is patient, though of a quick and sanguine temper. “Now, my dear son, it is worthy of serious inquiry, what it is that can produce such a beautiful miracle--that can so transform a frail mortal, and raise a woman almost to the level of angels? You will say it is filial love--filial piety--a daughter’s affection for an unhappy father. But you would thus give only half the answer. The affection of a daughter is, indeed, a lovely thing; it is, among other human feelings, like the rose among flowers--the very queen of the race: but it is still more charming when it is exalted by religion. Kathinka derives from this source an inspiration which exalts her beyond the powers of accident. She has never but one question to ask--‘What is my duty?’--and when the answer is given, her decision is made. And she follows her duty with such a bright gleam about her, as to make all happy who are near. That sour, solemn, martyr-like air, with which some good people do their duty, and which makes them, all the time, very disagreeable, is never to be seen in your sister. “And, what is strange to tell, her health seems rather to be improved by her activity and her toil; and, what is still more strange, her beauty is actually heightened since she has tasted sorrow and been made acquainted with grief. The calico frock is really more becoming to her than the velvet and gold gown, which she wore at the famous ‘Liberty ball,’ at Warsaw, and which you admired so much.