laborately
well-dressed ladies and gentlemen, in a room every way proportioned to
the number of the _convives_, with the thermometer at about 88 degrees,
I declared off, and made up my mind to decamp by the next train to seek
quiet and coolness on the summit of the Catskill mountains.

On our way we halted for a few hours at Ballston, the quality of whose
water is, I believe, similar to that of the Saratoga springs: the place
itself I liked better, simply, I suppose, because it had less of bustle
and pretension. At the hotel, whose pillared piazza, was, like that I
had just quitted, clothed with the freshest and most luxuriant clematis,
I met a gay young belle of New York, who was resident here with her
family, recruiting a sufficient stock of health to carry her through the
fatigues of a winter campaign. By this lady I had my prepossessions in
favour of Ballston confirmed; she assured me that the society here,
though exceedingly small by comparison, was infinitely more pleasant;
that there was less of dress or ceremony, and consequently more real
comfort and sociability. I left this place with a strong inclination to
remain for a few days at least: but my time of _relache_ was short; and
my misery was that I had much to see, and many points to visit lying far
asunder, therefore was bound to hasten on, leaving agreeable realities
as soon as found, to seek for something better, which too often proved a
shadow when overtaken.

Arrived at Albany, however, I found a right substantial welcome
awaiting me from "mine host o' th' Eagle," in the shape of a six o'clock
dinner of trout and woodcock, which would have recommended itself even
without the aid of a hot day's journey and a ten hours' fast.

Passed the evening with the K----s, one of those families of women
which, if I did not value their delicacy more than my own inclination, I
should like to describe, in contradiction to those who, viewing only the
surface of American society, have so flippantly passed judgment upon its
members.

And how many of these little circles have I encountered, and been
admitted into, in various parts of these States, composed of women who
have seen little of what is called the world; but whose information,
intelligence, and spirit would have made them the ornaments of any
country; and whose manners, refined, feminine, and naturally graceful,
might with infinite advantage be studied by some of the ungentle censors
whose tone of criticism is