My cousins and friends lavish lovely things upon me, and you will open your unsophisticated eyes when I display my silks and laces, trinkets and French hats, not to mention billet deux, photographs, and other relics of a young belle's first season.
You ask if I ever think of home. I really have n't time, but I do sometimes long a little for the quiet, the pure air and the girlish amusements I used to enjoy so much. One gets pale, and old, and sadly fagged out, with all this dissipation, pleasant as it is. I feel quite blas already.
If you could send me the rosy cheeks, bright eyes, and gay spirits I always had at home, I'd thank you. As you cannot do that, please send me a bottle of June rain water, for my maid tells me it is better than any cosmetic for the complexion, and mine is getting ruined by late hours.
I fancy some fruit off our own trees would suit me, for I have no appetite, and mamma is quite desolate about me. One cannot live on French cookery without dyspepsia, and one can get nothing simple here, for food, like everything else, is regulated by the fashion.
Adieu, ma chere, I must dress for church. I only wish you could see my new hat and go with me, for Lord Rockingham promised to be there.
Adieu, yours eternally, FLORENCE.
“Yes, I do like that better, and I wish I had been in this girl's place, don't you, Polly?” said Fan, as grandma took off her glasses.
“I should love to go to London, and have a good time, but I don't think I should care about spending ever so much money, or going to Court. Maybe I might when I got there, for I do like fun and splendor,” added honest Polly, feeling that pleasure was a very tempting thing.
“Grandma looks tired; let's go and play in the dwying-woom,” said Maud, who found the conversation getting beyond her depth.
“Let us all kiss and thank grandma, for amusing us so nicely, before we go,” whispered Polly. Maud and Fanny agreed, and grandma looked so gratified by their thanks, that Tom followed suit, merely waiting till “those girls” were out of sight, to give the old lady a hearty hug, and a kiss on the very cheek Lafayette had saluted.