o I wish it. If I
am ever to make anything, it is time now. I am twenty-one, and
in mind and body prepared, I think, for any line of enterprise
to which fortune may call me. Or if nothing can be done with
me, -- if what has been spent must be thrown away -- it is
needless to throw away any more; it would be better for me to
come home and settle down to the lot for which I seemed to be
born. Nothing can be gained by waiting longer, but much lost.

"I am not desponding, but seriously this transition life I am
leading at present is not very enlivening. I am neither one
thing nor the other; I am in a chrysalis state, which is
notoriously a dull one; and I have the further aggravation,
which I suppose never occurs to the nymph _bona fide_, of a
miserable uncertainty whether my folded-up wings are those of
a purple butterfly or of a poor drudge of a beetle. Besides,
it is conceivable that the chrysalis may get weary of his
case, and mine is not a silken one. I have been here long
enough. My aunt Landholm is very kind; but I think she would
like an increase of her household accommodations, and also
that she would prefer working it by the rule of _subtraction_
rather than by the more usual and obvious way of _addition_. She
is a good soul, but really I believe her larder contains
nothing but pork, and her pantry nothing but -- pumpkins! She
has actually contrived, by some abominable mystery of the
kitchen, to keep some of them over through a period of frost
and oblivion, and to-day they made their appearance in _due
form_ on the table again; my horror at which appearance has I
believe given me an indigestion, to which you may attribute
whatever of gloominess there may be contained in this letter.
I certainly felt very _heavy_ when I sat down; but the sight of
all your faces through fancy's sweet medium has greatly
refreshed me.

"Nevertheless answer me speedily, for I am in earnest,
although I am in jest.

"I intend to see you at all events soon.

"Love to the little ones and to dear ma and pa from

"Rufus."

"What does father say, mother?" was all Winthrop's commentary
on this epistle. She gave him the other letter, and he yielded
his brother's again to her stretched-out hand.

"Vantassel, March 22, 1809.

"My dear Orphah,

"I am really coming home! I never knew any months so long, it
seems to me, as these three. The business will be finished I
believe next week, and the Session will rise, and the first
us