My Dear Harriet:—
Your welcome letter has been received, and I rejoice to learn...... I trust you will soon be well enough...... I think of all places for you the nunnery at Georgetown would be the best. Your religious principles are doubtless so well settled that you will not become a nun.
My labors are great; but they do not “way” me down, as you write the word. Now I would say “weigh;” but doctors may differ on this point.
I hope Mary has recovered ere this from her bruises. Give my love to her, and tell her to have her saddle girthed tighter the next time she rides.
It will be easy for you to find Dr. Jackson’s remedy in any hay-field near Lancaster at this season. It would be quite romantic and interesting to witness your exploits on such a theatre.
Your friends, Mrs. Bancroft and the Pleasontons, often inquire for you with kindness. They have given you somewhat of a name here; and Mrs. Polk and Miss Rucker, her niece, have several times urged me to permit you to come and pass some time with them. I have been as deaf as the adder to their request, knowing, to use a word of your grandmother, that you are too “outsetting” already. There is a time for all things under the sun, as the wise man says, and your time will yet come.
I intend to go to the Bedford Springs this summer, if possible; but as Congress may not adjourn until the 10th August, the fashionable season will then be over. I had thought of giving Mary and yourself a polite invitation to accompany me there; but I fear it will be too late in the season for Mary to enact the character of a belle, and you are quite too young to make the attempt.
Miss Hetty requests me to send her love to you, and to say that she would be very glad to see you in Washington...... I fear she might be twice glad, once on your arrival, and still more so on your departure. She will be in Lancaster in September.
James Henry is here.[[84]] I intend to commence with him to-morrow and make him eat vegetables, or he shall have no meat. I have not yet determined upon a school for him.
I wish you to embrace the first opportunity to remember me very kindly to Mrs. Franklin. I never lived beside a better or more agreeable neighbor. Give my love to Mary, though I perceive this is the second time, and Patt, and believe me ever to be