o tightly. I must now leave off, and hoping that you will
take care of your health, as well as improve in your studies,--I remain,
yours very truly,

"EDWARD LANGTON."

Here was news indeed! My old bachelor uncle--he who when he was merry
used to laugh at the foibles of the fair sex and ridicule married
men--had himself been betrayed into marrying one of those frail beings
he professed to despise. All the experience of his long life had
vanished like smoke before the sunshine of his charmer. He had been
dazzled with her eyes, and had taken a step in the dark, and found
himself, too late, in the quagmire of remorse.

Poor old fool! I sincerely pitied him. "This comes," said I to myself,
"of turning nephews out of doors. Had you, instead of trying to bend the
iron resolve of your nephew to your own poor old obstinate will,
assisted him in his very laudable determination to follow science, you
might yet have lived and died a bachelor to your heart's content. But
console yourself, my uncle, St. Anthony was tempted by a fair demon
before you. Now you have learned a lesson, although it has come somewhat
late in life."

Although I deeply sympathised with my guardian's mistake, I could not do
otherwise than feel that he fully deserved this punishment for his
treatment of myself. How absurd and arrogant of a man, to persist in
bending another to his own selfish will! Are we free agents, or are we
not?

But enough of this. My uncle had sinned, and he was punished. He had
imagined his charmer an angel, and found after all that she was but
mortal like the rest of her sex, a poor, weak woman. He could hardly
ever have been besotted enough to fancy that she had married him for
anything else than his money, but what will not a man do to obtain the
idol of his affections?

Perhaps it was not mere blind passion that had induced him to thrust his
neck under the yoke. It might only have been pique. He would show his
nephew that he could live very happily without his companionship, and
this was the way he showed it.

I mentally drew a portrait of my aunt. A dashing, reckless girl,
determined to have her own way in everything, running up dressmakers'
bills, driving about in her carriage to spend her days in visiting and
frivolity. Ambitious of pleasing every man but her husband. Dragging her
poor old wooden-legged spouse after her to balls, operas, and concerts,
or else leaving h