n hostility to the estate, by carrying out the principle
of anticipation, rather than any of that prudent respect for social
consequences to which the legislator looks with so much anxiety.

The letter of Anna was in the following words:

"Good--nay, Dear JOHN:

"Thy letter was put into my hands yesterday. This is the fifth answer I
have commenced, and you will therefore see that I do not write without
reflection. I know thy excellent heart, John, better than it is known to
thyself. It has either led thee to the discovery of a secret of the last
importance to thy fellow-creatures, or it has led thee cruelly astray.
An experiment so noble and so praiseworthy ought not to be abandoned on
account of a few momentary misgivings concerning the result. Do not stay
thy eagle flight at the instant thou art soaring so near the sun! Should
we both judge it for our mutual happiness, I can become thy wife at a
future day. We are still young, and there is no urgency for an immediate
union. In the mean time, I will endeavor to prepare myself to be the
companion of a philanthropist by practising on thy theory, and, by
expanding my own affections, render myself worthy to be the wife of one
who has so large a stake in society, and who loves so many and so truly.

"Thine imitator and friend,

"Without change,

"ANNA ETHERINGTON.

"To Sir JOHN GOLDENCALF, Bart.

"P.S.--You may perceive that I am in a state of improvement, for I have
just refused the hand of Lord M'Dee, because I found I loved all his
neighbors quite as well as I loved the young peer himself."

Ten thousand furies took possession of my soul, in the shape of so many
demons of jealousy. Anna expanding her affections! Anna taking any other
stake in society than that I made sure she would accept through me! Anna
teaching herself to love more than one, and that one myself! The thought
was madness. I did not believe in the sincerity of her refusal of Lord
M'Dee. I ran for a copy of the Peerage (for since my own elevation in
life I regularly bought both that work and the Baronetage), and turned
to the page that contained his name. He was a Scottish viscount who
had just been created a baron of the united kingdom, and his age was
precisely that of my own. Here was a rival to excite distrust. By a
singular contradiction in sentiments, the more I dreaded his power to
injure me, the more I undervalued his means. While I fancied Anna was
merely playing with me, and had in sec