Please to communicate this scroll to your amiable daughters, and remind them of their promise to write.
A line from Harmony-Grove would be a luxury to me.
Meanwhile, permit me still to subscribe myself, with the utmost respect your grateful pupil,
HARRIOT HENLY.
To Miss MATILDA FIELDING.
Boston.
DEAR MATILDA,
I did not intend when we parted at the boarding school, that a whole month should have elapsed without bearing you some testimony of my continued friendship and affection; but so numerous have been my avocations, and so various my engagements, that I have scarcely called a moment my own since I returned home. Having been from town a year, I was considered as too antique to appear in company abroad, till I had been perfectly metamorphosed. Every part of my habit has undergone a complete change, in conformity to the present fashion. It was with extreme regret that I parted with the neatness and simplicity of my country dress; which, according to my ideas of modesty, was more becoming. But I trust, this alteration of appearance will have no tendency to alienate those sentiments from my heart which I imbibed under the tuition of Mrs. Williams.
I went, last evening, to the assembly; but though dazzled, I was by no means charmed, by the glare of finery and tinselled decorations that were displayed.
There were some ladies, whose gentility and fashionable dress were evidently the product of a correct taste; but others were so disguised by tawdry gewgaws, as to disgust me exceedingly.