This brother was a marked character. His person was manly, his voice firm, and his countenance the index of a soul that showed plain enough he was not born to be overlooked in the world. He was sensitive and exceedingly proud, yet a nobler heart never knocked against the ribs of mortality. But such a character as this is not calculated to gain friends. He was too open--gave his opinions too freely--and his talents were altogether too commanding and brilliant. Your popular fellows are your middling ones. Lyle Selden was no middling fellow--you would find it out by the first word that fell from him though he were half asleep at the time, and though the subject were as trite as those about which we witness the first volitation of your incipient poetasters. He was an original--a marked man--and his opinions though they might be sneered at, had nevertheless more weight than half the school put together. As he was sensitive so was he often unhappy, and though he met the taunts brought to his ears by his few real friends, with ‘I care not,’ yet he _did_ care--his heart inly bled, and his lonely hours were often embittered. As he was proud, this got him into difficulties; for though it was quite the reverse of vanity and self was the last one he thought of, yet it made his character a complex one which none understood unless he chose to enlighten them, and this save to a few his pride would not descend to. Hence he was thought callous and distant, when in reality his heart was the seat of every gentler feeling; and to those that _had_ skill to look beneath the surface, he was linked by a friendship as unyielding as it was noble. But these were few, and his character is best told in one sentence,--_he was respected and disliked_. His sister was an opposite character. She scarcely ever thought for herself, and in person she was rather lovely than beautiful, and had that touching feminineness about her which is rather to be felt than told of. She was too gentle to be independent, one of those rare specimens of loveliness that are shaped by associations, that can be moulded into any thing by the energies of a master mind. In short, she was too trusting, and had a spice of that credulous confidence in her composition, which, if fortune does not try it sorely, makes a woman a perfect nympholepsy and a vision.