I am ever yours,
Fanny.
Philadelphia, Tuesday, 30th, 1843.
My dear F——,
We are all established in a boarding-house here, where my acquaintances assure me that I am very comfortable; and so I endeavor to persuade myself that my acquaintances are better judges of that than I am myself. It is the first time in my life that I have ever lived in any such manner or establishment; so I have no means of trying it by comparison; it is simply detestable to me, but compared with more detestable places of the same sort it is probably less so. "There are differences, look you!" ...
I am sure your family deserve to have a temple erected to them by all foreigners in America; for it seems to me that you and your people are home, country, and friends to all such unfortunates as happen to have left those small items of satisfaction behind them. The stranger's blessing should rest on your dwellings, and one stranger's grateful blessing does rest there....
Believe me, yours most truly,
F. A. B.
Please to observe that the charge of 13s. 8d. is for personal advice, conferences, and tiresome morning visits; and if you make any such charge, I shall expect you to earn it. 6s. 4d. is all you are entitled to for anything but personal communication.
A LAWYER'S BILL. [This postscript, and the beginning of the letter, were jesting references to a lawyer's bill, amounting to nearly £50, presented to me by a young legal gentleman with whom we had been upon terms of friendly acquaintance, and whom we had employed, as he was just beginning business, to execute the papers for the deed of gift I have mentioned, by which my father left me at his death my earnings, the use of which I had given up to him on my marriage for his lifetime.