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The idea of trying to be spontaneous, brings to my mind our friend Mrs. Loveall. She and Mr. Loveall have been here with two of the Miss Lovealls. How she did my-dearme, when I called upon her! and how she did show off the young ladies to Mr. Somers who was there! Three hundred thousand dollars, writes poetry, and belongs to one of our first families, she told me after he left us. Query. What were they, these first families originally? Cobblers or tinkers? She, however, dwelt only upon his poetical talents and intellectual charms. By the bye, dear, there's a pattern couple for you! They are as civil as two pickpockets to each other. It is always "Just as you please my dear; ladies should govern in all things," and on her part, "I am ready, Mr. Lovell, to do as you shall decide is best," and to the young ladies it is, "Don't forget the injunctions of your Papa; his will should be consulted in every thing, my dear." I heard her once deliver a homily upon the duties of wives. I had some suspicion it was meant for me; so I remarked that I thought the idea of a woman obeying / her husband was now among the acknowledged barbarisms of older times; it was altogether obsolete among well-bred folks.

"I," she replied "am old-fashioned enough to think that the poet had the true notion of the dignity of woman when he said, she

"Charms by accepting, by submitting sways."

"Does not that intimate," I replied, "that to govern is the great object with women? only that as the power cannot be obtained by open and fair means, it must be gained by contrivance." I asked this with a due reverence in my manner.

She answered with a patronizing sentimental smile. "The truth is, my dear, men enjoy the chains that are hidden by the flowers that love twines around them.”

"You think, then," I said, "that when men call themselves the slaves of the fair sex, it is no figure of speech, but sober reality."

"Men," she said, "have a right to govern by the law of the land; and in all externals are, and should be masters; they are the visible, the acknowledged head."

Woman, then," I said, "if she is only cunning, is the real, man the apparent, head of the family."

"No, no," said Mrs. Lovell. "I am afraid, my dear, you are a little heretical

upon this subject. But Mr. Lovell and I early came to an understanding with regard to these matters; and I think that I owe the unparalleled felicity of my married life to adhering strictly to these principles."

I asked a lady the other day, who knew them intimately, whether they seemed happy together. "O, yes," she answered; "you never hear a debate, not even a discussion, between them. He is almost always in his study, and she always in the drawing-room. They treat each other with the most profound respect, and each goes on in his own course, as freely as if the other was not in being."

It is a shame, at this moment, dear Amy, when your mind is occupied so entirely with other things, to send you a letter filled with such nonsense. I wish you could see my beautiful little Willy. I have no right to anything so angelic. O, why was I ever obliged to leave you? Bless you! Heaven bless you! Still remember and love your old playmate. Come what will, let me still be your dear FANNY.

A few weeks after her return, Amy wrote to her cousin :

:

Dear Fanny,

O, if I could only talk with you, instead of writing, I have so much that I want to say to you! and when one's heart is so full, words are so inadequate! "Begin," you will say, “and tell on, just as the children do; and so I will.

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I told you, in my last, that we were to be married at church; and so we were. My friend, Miss Treville, who was present, says there were not many people there. I thought, beforehand, that it would be very disagreeable to me, to have any but my most intimate friends present; but I had no idea of the absorbing nature of the emotions I should experience. I was perfectly unconscious of the presence of any human being except my husband. The church might have been full, and I should not have known it. A deep, unutterable, religious calmness took possession of my soul. It was the most holy, the most perfectly blissful moment of my whole life. I saw nothing. I heard the prayer as not hearing it. There was a more perfect prayer rising silently and unbidden from my own heart. A strange, unearthly influence seemed to be upon me, when I felt the pressure of Edward's hand, and realized that we were

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one for time and for eternity. thing that brought me to this world again was the audible sobs of friend Ruth, who was quite near me, and the consciousness that Edward was leading me out of the church to the carriage. Before I stepped in, I gave the dear soul my hand, which she squeezed in such a way as to put it beyond all doubt, that I was yet in the body, and still subject to its infirmities. I could hardly help wringing my hand with pain, as soon as I was in the carriage.

If you had been with me, you would have highly enjoyed a scene that took place between Ruth and Jerry, the day before we were married. I was in the kitchen, trying to persuade Ruth that a colored crape gown, which Edward had brought for her from Canton, would do for her to wear at my wedding.

"They say, ma'am, that it is a bad sign, to go to a wedding in anything but white; and though this gown I'm fixing up is rather short, yet at meeting nobody will see my feet; and I shall feel better in it, I know."

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But, Ruth," I said, "I did not think you were so superstitious."

“And I am sure, Miss Amy, I am not su

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