Our beautiful Woodlands well deserves its name; the Park is rich in its old ancestral trees, and abounds in grassy knolls; and a river, sparkling and clear as crystal, filled with trout, meanders through the grounds, preserving the freshness and enhancing the beauty of the scene. Fortunate creature, I think I hear you exclaim, and truly, I can imagine no happier lot than to have called such a place by the sweet name of home in my girlhood. But, alas! as it is, I envy the deer, the birds, the flowers, their freedom. Oh, Mary! when starting on my first journey as a wife, you placed in my hands a volume of Byron, your parting remembrance, you little thought what a fatal gift it would prove to me. It has opened a new field of romance, and from a child your poor Evelyn has sprung into womanhood. I now know the kind feeling I bear towards my husband is not worthy the name of _love_. How then could I continue to deceive him by permitting him to believe the contrary? No; I thought it my duty to confess to him that I never did, and never could love him. And he—loves me better than his dog, and a little less than his horse. What a prospect, when one is not yet seventeen! You will tell me no one is to blame but myself. I deny this. I am the creature of circumstance, and could not have done otherwise than I have done. But to return to our family circle. You saw my father-in-law at the wedding; a good-hearted, frank, generous, but somewhat rough, country squire, who makes a great pet of his new daughter. His wife, a tall, lanky, uninteresting lady, with stony eyes, who studies nothing but her own health, fancying herself a confirmed invalid. She lives almost entirely in her own apartments, only occasionally appearing at dinner, to which she does, however, most ample justice. This is the only time she ever sees the good squire, her husband, and even then she is barely civil to him. Not a very good example for us young people. Both parents dote on their only son, and each appears jealous of the other’s influence over him. My father-in-law, with Edward, sometimes sit too long over their wine, usually, indeed, not making their appearance in the drawing-room till it is almost time to think of retiring for the night, and then they throw themselves into an arm chair or on a sofa and fall asleep. It is not, as you may suppose, very amusing for me, and only makes me pine the more for your society. Do you remember, Mary, how you used to tease me and tell me I was not going to marry a man, “but a pair of moustaches?” Well, I confess, they may have had a trifle to do with it, but only just imagine my horror: Edward appeared yesterday morning at breakfast shorn of his honors, and on my exclamation of natural disgust, he informed me