It is no light task I have undertaken, Jack. Meg is so innocent, so utterly simple, that it seems like a sacrilege to disturb her tranquillity with love tales. She has no more idea of love than had Miranda before she met Ferdinand. Yet, if my memory serves me, Prospero's daughter found no difficulty in loving the shipwrecked Prince. I don't suppose any woman does find a difficulty when the knowledge of the passion comes to her. How could they, when, as Horace says, they learn it before their A, B, C. But Horace is a wicked old pagan, and I blush to quote him in connection with my spotless Una. Oh, Jack, if you only see what pretty ways she has, and how charmingly she can smile! "All heaven is in that smile." And her singing! Jack, she has a voice like a nightingale. Pshaw! no nightingale can trill like her. I am fathoms deep in love, Jack,--fathoms deep. I should like to tell her all I feel, yet must be wary and delicate in my attentions. She is as timid as a dove, and may fly like one, should I speak too boldly. Even the admiration in my eyes offended her to-day, though I swear I looked not with ruffian passion in her face. As soon would I think of killing myself in the midst of my newly found happiness, as of cherishing an unworthy thought of this Diana. I must pause here, as my passion is carrying me beyond all bounds, and I wax poetical. I dare say you think it would be as well for me to talk less poetry and more common sense. You are right, and I will try to do so; but it is as hard for a lover to be practical, as it is for a poet to stay Pegasus when his wings are spread.