I had it in my head to write another letter, and, indeed, made about a dozen attempts to begin it. It was to Pauline. Nothing but very boyishness could have ever conceived such a project, but I thought--it was very simple of me!--I thought I owed it to her, and to my own loyalty, to declare that my heart had wandered from its first allegiance, and fixed its devotion on another. I believed--I was young enough to believe it--that I had won her affections, and I felt it would be dishonorable in me to deceive her as to my own. I suppose I was essaying a task that would have puzzled a more consummate tactician than myself, for certainly nothing could be more palpable than my failures; and though I tried, with all the ingenuity I possessed, to show that in my altered fortunes I could no longer presume to retain any hold on her affections, somehow it would creep out that my heart had opened to a sentiment far deeper and more enthralling than that love which began in a polka and ended at the railway. I must own I am now grateful to my stupidity and ineptness, which saved me from committing this great blunder, though at the time I mourned over my incapacity, and bewailed the dulness that destroyed every attempt I made to express myself gracefully. I abandoned the task at length in despair, and set to work to pack up for my journey. I was to start at daybreak for Agram, where some business would detain me a couple of days. Thence I was to proceed to a small frontier town in Hungary, called Ostovich, on the Drave, where we owned a forest of oak scrub, and which I was empowered to sell, if an advantageous offer could be had. If such should not be forthcoming, my instructions were to see what water-power existed in the neighborhood to work saw-mills, and to report fully on the price of labor, and the means of conveyance to the coast. If I mention these details, even passingly, it is but to show the sort of work that was intrusted to me, and how naturally my pride was touched at feeling how great and important were the interests confided to my judgment. In my own» esteem, at least, I was somebody. This sentiment, felt in the freshness of youth, is never equalled by anything one experiences of triumph in after life, for none of our later successes come upon hearts joyous in the day-spring of existence, hopeful of all things, and, above all, hearts that have not been jarred by envy and made discordant by ungenerous rivalry.