books, which she hinted might become extravagant or morbid. I conversed frankly with her respecting all my gentlemen friends, and my peculiar standing with them, and was both surprised and enlightened by her acuteness in the analysis of character, and her discriminating criticism of the style of manner and conversation.
Secretly deeming myself a thing set apart, I conscientiously avoided all trifling with the feelings of others. Detesting every form of flirtation, when I foresaw by woman's intuition that aught serious was meditated, I withdrew myself as far as possible until the impression passed by. It seemed to me rank dishonesty to sport about the purlieus of matrimony, with a fixed intention of never entering there. Neither were this innate vow and consequent self-denial so great as might naturally appear in one so young and so agreeably allured. Fondness for intellectual pursuits prevented any restless search of excitement or personal admiration; and I never knew a sensation of loneliness save in uncongenial society. As my Lord Bacon says, "he had the privy-coat of a good conscience," I wore, as an inward shield, my own construction of a daughter's duty.
Still, I was sometimes sorely tempted, and my faith ready to fail. At a time when my religious convictions were peculiarly strong, I painfully studied the case, whether I ought not to take part in mission labor
