"It is too true, that many of your slow, cautious, miserly characters, attempt to reduce the whole business to a question in the single rule of three; as thus: if Caroline B. with a sweet face and a prudent turn makes a thrifty wife, what will Adeline B. make, with a sweet face, thrifty ways, and a heavy purse? "Thanks be to an overruling providence, they are often carried a rule or two farther in their mathematics than they intended; the honey-moon winds up with doleful calculations, in the ashes of the chimney-corner, with the end of their rattans; such as Vulgar Fractions, Profit and Loss, Tare and Trett, et cetera. "You must not imagine, from what I have here said, that I am one of those dreamers who contend that the world might again become a paradise; if, in these things, men would always consult the dictates of the heart. "If we look forward at the marriages which are to come, we can discern nothing. This you may think is too true to make a joke of, and too serious to discuss. But look back over all the world that you have seen, and I think you will own that Providence or destiny has had a great design constantly in view in their fulfilment. The human character has been equipoised, extremes have been avoided, the humble elevated, the exalted humbled; all the genius, and the wit, and the judgment, and the virtues, have not been suffered to be concentrated in the descendants of a single pair, but have been as nearly as possible divided among us, the descendants of the multitude. Opposite, or rather diverging characters, are frequently enamoured of each other--the brave man loves the gentle woman; the gentle man, the gay woman; and thus in their descendants we have the grand compromise of nature. "There is a sermon, now for the text--'neither is the battle to the strong nor the race to the swift.' "V. CHEVILLERE." * * * * * V. CHEVILLERE TO B. RANDOLPH. (In continuation.) "New-York, 18--. "The day being Sunday, I sent old Cato this morning to arouse Lamar quite early, in order to ascertain if he was disposed to walk before breakfast, and view some of the boasted parks, groves, and gardens of these hospitable Gothamites. Old Cato soon returned, saying that Lamar had but that moment fallen asleep, but that he would be with me as soon as he could make a hasty toilet; hasty it indeed was, for he was not many minutes behind Cato, in his morning-gown and slippers, yawning and stretching his clenched fists through the room as if he had sat in his chair all night.