lor in cheek and lip makes her look as fresh as a rose. Her nose is
the doubtful feature. It is--hum!--_Roman_, and some fastidious folks
think a _trifle_ too large. But I think it suits well her keen eyes
and slightly haughty mouth. She has fine hands, a tall figure, and an
independent "grand action," that is not wanting in grace, but is more
significant of prompt energy.

The study of woman is a new one to me. I often see Kate's friends
and gossips,--for I occupy the parlor as sick-room,--and I lie
philosophizing upon them by the hour, puzzling myself to solve the
problem of their idiosyncrasies. Lady Mary Wortley Montague said, that,
in all her travels, she had met with but two kinds of people,--men
and women. I begin to think that one sex will never be thoroughly
comprehended by the other, notwithstanding the desperate efforts the
novelists are making now-a-days. They all go upon the same plan. They
take some favorite woman, watch her habits keenly, dissect her, analyze
her very blood and marrow,--then patch her up again, and set her in
motion by galvanism. She stalks through three volumes and--drops dead.
I have seen Kate laugh herself almost into convulsions over the knowing
remarks upon the sex in Thackeray, Reade, and others. And I must confess
that the women I know resemble those of no writer but Shakspeare.

We take our revenge for this irritating incapacity by saying that
neither can women create ideal men at all resembling reality. But _halte
la!_ Was it not said at first that Rochester _must_ be a man's man? Is
not the little Professor Paul Emanuel an actual masculine creature?
Heathcliff was a fiend,--but a male fiend.

But where am I wandering? To come back to my sister. She is a fair
specimen of the quick, impulsive, frank class of women. She says she
belongs to the _genus irritabile_. She is easily excited to every good
emotion, and also to the nobler failings of anger, indignation, and
pride. But she is so far above any meanness or littleness, that she
don't know them when she sees them. They pass with her for what they are
not, and she is spared the humiliation of knowing what her species is
capable of. Kate's nature is very charming, but there is a gentler,
calmer order of beings in the sex. I once was greatly attracted by one
of them; and you, I think, belong to that order. However, I should not
class you with her,--for Kate says she was a "deceitful thing." She may
have been so, for aught I know;