June 27.

A letter this morning from our pretty cousin Evangeline, announcing that she is engaged to a Dr. Ross of Chautauqua county, where she lives.  Evangeline is the only daughter of mamma’s youngest sister, Margaret.  She is eighteen years old, of medium height, and well formed, with a fair complexion, the chestnut hair that is peculiar to the younger members of the Greeley family, and brown eyes inherited from her father’s family, for the Greeley eye par excellence is blue.  Although Evangeline has been brought up in the quiet little village of Clymer, she has been well educated, and besides being uncle’s favorite among his nieces, she was much admired in general society during the winter that she spent with us in New York two years ago.  At uncle’s birthday party, which she attended, she was by many pronounced the handsomest young lady present.

We have never seen Dr. Ross, but mamma remembers his family well, and says that “he comes of a good stock.”  He is not wealthy, but he is in a good profession, is of unexceptionable character, and very devoted to our dear Evangeline; so they have my blessing.  The marriage will not take place until December, when Evangeline will have laid off her mourning.

Marguerite’s portfolio is open upon her writing-table, and a letter to Evangeline, not yet sealed, lies between the blotting-sheets.  As it speaks of Evangeline’s betrothal, I will insert it here: 

“CHAPPAQUA, June 27.

“DEAREST EVANGELINE:—­You complain in your last letter that I do not write enough about Chappaqua and ‘the farm.’  You wish particulars.  My sweet cousin, I thought that you were familiar with descriptions of this dearest spot on earth, as I remember that dear uncle gave each of us a copy of his ‘Recollections’ the last Christmas that you were with us—­the last Christmas indeed that he spent upon this earth.  Peruse that volume, dear, for in it you will find a more vivid picture, a more poetic description of his dearly loved home and surroundings, than anything that I can say.

“As to Chappaqua being a large or small village—­it is small, very small, not half so large as Clymer, where you live; but it is far more picturesque.  There are only a dozen or two houses in all, including a couple of stores, a post-office, a ‘wayside inn,’ and a church without a bell.  There are, however, many fine residences scattered over the township; whichever way we drive, we see elegant mansions nestling in a copse of wood, or crowning some hill-top.

“The valley through which we approach Chappaqua is faced on either side by a succession of beautiful undulating hills that are thickly covered with dark-green foliage.  This farm, consisting of eighty-four acres (for you know that there is another lying adjacent of nearly the same size), presents very beautiful and varied scenery.  Near the house in the woods, where uncle and aunt lived so many years, a pretty brook winds down by the lower barn, and goes singing away through the meadows bright