your mind by Nature, assiduously cultivated by the best of parents, and exerted, I trust, by yourself.  Let me advise you, then, in conducting this affair,—­an affair big, perhaps, with your future fate,—­to lay aside those coquettish airs which you sometimes put on; and remember that you are not dealing with a fop, who will take advantage of every concession, but with a man of sense and honor, who will properly estimate your condescension and frankness.  Act, then, with that modest freedom, that dignified unreserve, which bespeak conscious rectitude and sincerity of heart.

I shall be extremely anxious to hear the process and progress of this business.  Relieve my impatience as soon as possible; and believe me yours with undissembled affection.

LUCY FREEMAN.

LETTER XIV.

TO MISS LUCY FREEMAN.

NEW HAVEN.

I have received, and read again and again, your friendly epistle.  My reason and judgment entirely coincide with your opinion; but my fancy claims some share in the decision; and I cannot yet tell which will preponderate.  This was the day fixed for deciding Mr. Boyer’s cause.  My friends here gave me a long dissertation on his merits.  Your letter, likewise, had its weight; and I was candidly summoning up the pros and cons in the garden, whither I had walked, (General Richman and lady having rode out,) when I was informed that he was waiting in the parlor.  I went immediately in, (a good symptom, you will say,) and received him very graciously.  After the first compliments were over, he seemed eager to improve the opportunity to enter directly on the subject of his present visit.  It is needless for me to recite to you, who have long been acquainted with the whole process of courtship, the declarations, propositions, protestations, entreaties, looks, words, and actions of a lover.  They are, I believe, much the same in the whole sex, allowing for their different dispositions, educations, and characters; but you are impatient, I know, for the conclusion.

You have hastily perused the preceding lines, and are straining your eye forward to my part of the farce; for such it may prove, after all.  Well, then, not to play too long with the curiosity which I know to be excited and actuated by real friendship, I will relieve it.  I think you would have been pleased to have seen my gravity on this important occasion.  With all the candor and frankness which I was capable of assuming, I thus answered his long harangue, to which I had listened without interrupting him:  “Self-knowledge, sir, that most important of all sciences, I have yet to learn.  Such have been my situations in life, and the natural volatility of my temper, that I have looked but little into my own heart in regard to its future wishes and views.  From a scene of constraint and confinement, ill suited to my years and inclination, I have just launched