r with parental
solicitude. Tradition says that he frequently inculcated the most
valuable precepts when talking seriously with her; and in his most
playful mood would give her words of wisdom that took root in her mind
and heart. This fact is so well exhibited in the following letter of
his, written to Nelly, when she was about sixteen years of age, that we
give it entire. It was on the occasion of her first attendance at a
ball, an account of which she had given him in a letter:--

"PHILA., _January 16, 1795._

"Your letter, the receipt of which I am now acknowledging, is
written correctly and in fair characters, which is an evidence that
you command, when you please, a fair hand. Possessed of these
advantages, it will be your own fault if you do not avail yourself
of them; and, attention being paid to the choice of your subjects,
you can have nothing to fear from the malignancy of criticism, as
your ideas are lively, and your descriptions agreeable. Let me
touch a little now on your Georgetown ball; and happy, thrice
happy, for the fair who were assembled on the occasion, that there
was a man to spare; for had there been seventy-nine ladies and only
seventy-eight gentlemen, there might, in the course of the evening,
have been some disorder among the caps, notwithstanding the apathy
which _one_ of the company entertains for the '_youth_' of the
present day, and her determination 'never to give herself a
moment's uneasiness on account of any of them.' A hint here: men
and women feel the same inclinations to each other _now_ that they
always have done, and which they will continue to do until there is
a new order of things; and _you_, as others have done, may find,
perhaps, that the passions of your sex are easier raised than
allayed. Do not, therefore, boast too soon or too strongly of your
insensibility to, or resistance of, its powers. In the composition
of the human frame there is a good deal of inflammable matter,
however dormant it may lie for a time, and like an intimate
acquaintance of yours, when the torch is put to it, _that_ which is
_within you_ may burst into a blaze; for which reason, and
especially, too, as I have entered upon the chapter of advices, I
will read you a lecture drawn from this text.

"Love is said to be an involuntary passion, and it is therefore