, modest, and of a sweet disposition." When you
learn that this is the case I think you will not accuse me of being hasty
in bringing the affair to a crisis. I ventured to tell her my whole
heart, and instead of obscure and ambiguous answers, which some would
have given to tantalize and pain one, she frankly, but modestly and
timidly, told me it was mutual. Suffice it to say we are _engaged_.

If I know my parents I know they will be pleased with this amiable girl.
Unless I was confident of it, I should never have been so hasty. I have
not yet mentioned it to her parents; she requested me to defer it till
next summer, or till I see her again, lest she should be thought hasty.
She is but sixteen and is willing to wait two or three years if it is for
our mutual interest.

Never, never was a human being so blest as I am, and yet what an
ungrateful wretch I have been. Pray for me that I may have a grateful
heart, for I deserve nothing but adversity, and yet have the most
unbounded prosperity.

The father replies to this characteristic letter on September 4, 1816:--

"I have just received yours of the 2d inst. Its contents were deeply
interesting to us, as you will readily suppose. It accounts to us why you
have made so long a stay at Concord.... So far as we can judge from your
representations (which are all we have to judge from), we cannot refuse
you our approbation, and we hope that the course, on which you have
entered with your characteristic rapidity and decision, will be pursued
and issue in a manner which will conduce to the happiness of all
concerned....

"We think _her_ parents should be made acquainted with the state of the
business, as she is so young and the thing so important to them."

The son answers this letter, from Walpole, New Hampshire, on September 7,
1816, thus naively: "You think the parents of the young lady should be
made acquainted with the state of the business. I feel some degree of
awkwardness as it respects that part of the affair; I don't know the
manner in which it ought to be done. I wish you would have the goodness
to write me immediately (at Walpole, to care of Thomas Bellows, Esq.) and
inform me what I should say. Might I communicate the information by
writing?"

Here he gives a detailed account of the family, and, for the first time,
mentions the young lady's name--Lucretia Pickering Walker--and
continues:--

"You ask how the family have treated me. They are all aware of the
a