is that little word composed! How graceful it looks, when it is
written! Let nobody talk to me of its original meaning, 'The Field of
Blood'! Oh, no such thing! It is the field of joy! 'The beautiful city,
that lifts her fair head in the valley, and says, _I am, and there is
none beside me.'_ Who says she is vain? Julia will not say so,--nor yet
Honora,--and least of all, their devoted

"John Andre."

It is not difficult to perceive in the tone of this letter that its
writer was not an accepted lover. His interests with the lady, despite
Miss Seward's watchful care, were already declining; and the lapse of a
few months more reduced him to the level of a valued and entertaining
friend, whose civilities were not to pass the conventional limits of
polite intercourse. To Andre this fate was very hard. He was hopelessly
enamored; and so long as fortune offered him the least hope of eventual
success, he persevered in the faith that Honora might yet be his own.
But every returning day must have shaken this faith. His visits were
discontinued and his correspondence dropped. Other suitors pressed their
claims, and often urged an argument which it was beyond his means to
supply. They came provided with what Parson Hugh calls good gifts:
"Seven hundred pounds and possibilities is good gifts." Foremost among
these dangerous rivals were two men of note in their way: Richard Lovell
Edgeworth, and the eccentric, but amiable Thomas Day.

Mr. Day was a man whose personal charms were not great. Overgrown,
awkward, pitted with the small-pox, he offered no pleasing contrast to
the discarded Andre: but he had twelve hundred pounds a year. His
notions in regard to women were as peculiar as his estimate of his own
merit. He seems to have really believed that it would be impossible for
any beautiful girl to refuse her assent to the terms of the contract by
which she might acquire his hand. These were absurd to a degree; and it
is not cause for surprise that Miss Sneyd should have unhesitatingly
refused them. Poor Mr. Day was not prepared for such continued ill-luck
in his matrimonial projects. He had already been very unfortunate in his
plans for obtaining a perfect wife,--having vainly provided for the
education of two foundlings between whom he promised himself to select a
paragon of a helpmate. To drop burning sealing-wax upon their necks, and
to discharge a pistol close to their ears, were among his philosophical
rules for training them