Chapter VI: Letter V: Miss Myra Harrington to Mrs. Holmes

_Boston._

ARE the rural pleasures of _Belleview_, my dear friend, so engaging as to debar us of the pleasure of your company forever? Do your dear groves, and your books, still employ your meditating mind? Serious sentimentalist as you are, let me ask, whether a Ball, a Concert or Serenade, would not afford you the satisfaction of a contemplative walk in your garden, listening to the love tales of the melodious inhabitants of the air?

RAILLERY apart—when shall I take upon myself the honour to wait upon you here?—I want to advise with you on certain points of female conduct, and about my new dress—I have heard you say, lessons to a volatile mind should be fresh and fresh applied, because it either pretends to despise them, or has a tendency to degeneracy—Now you must know I am actually degenerating for want of some of your Mentor-like lessons of instruction. I have scarcely any opinion of my own, these fashions, changing about so often, are enough to vitiate the best taste in the world.

I FORGOT to tell you my brother has been at home this month; but, from certain indubitable symptoms, I suspect the young man to be in love.

HEIGHHO! what is become of _Worthy_? The time of my liberty steals away, for you know I was to have three or four months of liberty before I gave myself up to his authority, and relinquished all my right and title to the name of

_Harrington_.