Never indulge feelings of partiality for any man until he has distinctly avowed his own sentiments, and you have deliberately determined the several points already mentioned.  If you do you may subject yourself to much needless disquietude, and perhaps the most unpleasant disappointments.  And the wounded feeling thus produced, may have an injurious effect upon your subsequent character and happiness.

I shall close this letter with a few brief remarks, of a general nature.

1.  Do not suffer this subject to occupy a very prominent place in your thoughts.  To be constantly ruminating upon it, can hardly fail of exerting an injurious influence upon your mind, feelings, and deportment; and you will be almost certain to betray yourself, in the society of gentlemen, and, perhaps, become the subject of merriment, as one who is anxious for a husband.

2.  Do not make this a subject of common conversation.  There is, perhaps, nothing which has a stronger tendency to deteriorate the social intercourse of young people than the disposition to give the subject of matrimonial alliances so prominent a place in their conversation, and to make it a matter of jesting and mirth.  There are other subjects enough, in the wide fields of science, literature, and religion, to occupy the social hour, both profitably and pleasantly; and a dignified reserve on this subject will protect you from rudeness, which you will be very likely to encounter, if you indulge in jesting and raillery in regard to it.

3.  Do not speak of your own private affairs of this kind, so as to have them become the subject of conversation among the circle of your acquaintances.  It certainly does not add to the esteem of a young lady, among sensible people, for her to be heard talking about her beaux.  Especially is this caution necessary in the case of a matrimonial engagement.  Remember the old adage: 

  “There’s many a slip
  Between the cup and the lip;”

and consider how your feelings would be mortified, if, after making such an engagement generally known among your acquaintances, anything should occur to break it off.  In such case, you will have wounded feeling enough to struggle with, without the additional pain of having the affair become a neighborhood talk.

4.  Do not make an engagement a long time before you expect it to be consummated.  Such engagements are surrounded with peril.  A few years may make such changes in the characters and feelings of young persons as to destroy the fitness and congeniality of the parties; while, if the union had been consummated, they would have assimilated to each other.

In short, let me entreat you to cultivate the most delicate sense of propriety in regard to everything having the most distant relation to this matter; and let all your feelings, conversation, and conduct, be regulated upon the most elevated principles of purity, refinement, and religion; but do not carry your delicacy and reserve to the extreme of prudery, which is an unlovely trait of character, and which adds nothing to the strength of virtue.