They are fast weaving for me the web of my destiny. I look on and take no part in the work. It is over--I have been presented in form. They say she is beautiful--it may be so;--but the blind man cannot be persuaded of the charms of the rose, when his finger is wounded by its thorns. She met me with some confusion, which was natural, considering she had been “won unsought.” Yet I thought it was the bashfulness of a _hoyden_, rather than that soul-born delicate bashfulness which I have seen accompanied with every grace. How few there are who do or can distinguish this in woman; yet in nature there is nothing more distinct than the modesty of sentiment and of constitution. The father was, as usual, boisterously good-humoured, and vulgarly pleasant; he talked over our sporting adventures last winter, as if the topic were exhaustless. For my part, I was so silent, that my father looked uneasy, and I then made amends for my former taciturnity by talking incessantly, and on every subject, with vehemence and rapidity. A woman of common sense or common delicacy, would have been disgusted; but she is a child. They would fain drag me after them into public, but my plea of ill health has been received by my indulgent father. My gay young mistress seems already to consider me as her husband, and treats me accordingly with indifference. In short, she finds that love in the solitude of the country, and amidst the pleasures of the town, is a very different sentiment; yet her vanity, I believe, is piqued by my neglect; for to-day she said, when I excused myself from accompanying her to a morning concert, Oh! I should much rather have your father with me, he is the younger man of the two: I indeed never saw him in such health and spirits; he seems to tread on air. Oh! that he were my rival, my successful rival! In the present morbid state of my feelings I give in to every thing; but when it comes to a crisis, will this stupid acquiescence still befriend their wishes? Impossible! IN CONTINUATION.