ittle enough, to be sure,--and withdraw you beyond the
reach of those civilities which you would receive on all hands in the
city. All this, though, is for yourself to determine on; bed, board, and
welcome, we tender you freely; your room, and the inkstand you desire in
it, shall be ready on the day you name; and we will joyfully meet you
when and where you please to be met, and convey you to our abode, where
I can positively promise you absolute quiet, which perhaps in itself may
not be unacceptable, after all your mind and body have gone through
during your stay in this country.

The Reform Convention is now sitting in Philadelphia, and is no mean
curiosity of its kind, I assure you; I should like you to see and hear
it.

Ever yours truly,
F. A. B.

[Mrs. Jameson paid us a short, sad visit, and returned to Europe
with the bitter disappointment of her early life confirmed, to
resume her honorable and laborious career of literary industry. Her
private loss was the public gain. When next we met, it was in
England.]

BRANCHTOWN, Friday, December 29th, 1837.
MY DEAR LADY DACRE,

Doubtless you have long ago accounted your kind letter lost, for I am
sure you would not imagine that I could have received, and yet so long
delayed to answer it: yet so it is; and I hardly know how to account for
it, for the receipt of your letter gratified and touched me very much;
the more so, probably, that my father and mother hardly ever write to
any of us, and so a letter from any one much my senior always seems to
me a condescension; and though I may have appeared so, believe me, I am
not ungrateful for your kindness in making the effort of writing to
me....

I wish it were in my power to give you a decent excuse for not having
written sooner, but the more I reflect, the less I can think what I have
been doing; yet I have been, and am, busy incessantly from morning to
night, about nothing. My whole life passes in trifling activities, and
small recurring avocations, which do not each seem to occupy an hour,
and yet at last weigh down the balance of the twenty-four. I cannot name
the thing I do, and but that our thoughts are to be revealed at the Day
of Judgment, I should on that occasion be in the knife-grinder's case:
"Story! Lord bless you! I have none to tell, sir!" for except ordering