My dear Sister (Mary),--The Hartford letter from all and sundry has just arrived, and after cutting all manner of capers expressive of thankfulness, I have skipped three stairs at a time up to the study to begin an answer.
My notions of answering letters are according to the literal sense of the word; not waiting six months and then scrawling a lazy reply, but sitting down the moment you have read a letter, and telling, as Dr. Woods says, “How the subject strikes you.”
I wish I could be clear that the path of duty lay in talking to you this afternoon, but as I find a loud call to consider the heels of George's stockings, I must only write a word or two, and then resume my darningneedle.
You don't know how anxiously we all have watched for some intelligence from Hartford.
Not a day has passed when I have not been the efficient agent in getting somebody to the post-office, and every day my heart has sunk at the sound of “no letters.”
I felt a tremor quite sufficient for a lover when I saw your handwriting once more, so you see that in your old age you can excite quite as much emotion as did the admirable Miss Byron in her adoring Sir Charles.
I hope the consideration and digestion of this fact will have its due weight in encouraging you to proceed.
The fact of our having received said letter is as yet a state secret, not to be made known till all our family circle “in full assembly meet” at the tea-table. Then what an illumination! “How we shall be edified and fructified,” as that old Methodist said. It seems too bad to keep it from mother and Aunt Esther a whole afternoon, but then I have the comfort of thinking that we are consulting for their greatest happiness “on the whole,” which is metaphysical benevolence.
