Mamma arrived safe and well on Wednesday morning to our great joy, after having a pleasant passage from Newport, staying two days in Boston, two in Newport, and one in Providence. We are going to Uncle’s to dine to-day, and I can’t persuade Miranda to write a line to let you know Mamma had come,—company coming in every minute, and can but just steal a moment to write. Louise is with you,—I am more than half vexed that I am to be disappointed of the charming winter I had promised myself, with you and Louise to spend it with me, so you need not be surprised if I am rather ill-natured at times. The secret is out, and all your friends, beaux I mean, walk the other side of the street when I meet them. Mary Murray called this morning; seemed rather disappointed at not having a letter. Eliza Watts thanks you for the wedding-cake as well as myself. Give my best love to Louise as well as all my other friends. We go over into Jersey to-morrow,—E. Watts and Susan go with us,—John Wadsworth. I wish you could have been here while Mamma was. Adieu; write me soon, and expect a longer letter as soon as I can command a little more time. Your affectionate E. S. BOWNE. P. S. Remember I don’t call this a _letter_, so no lectures on that head. Jamaica, October 6, 1805. I am delighted, my Dear Octavia, to hear you are so finely, and the more so as I hear it from _yourself_. I did not so soon expect such fine effects from the new system of living; I am sure all will be well now. A wedding I suppose next, for I conclude from the melancholy pathos with which you say, you shall “neither have the independence of a married woman, nor of a single,” that you don’t mean to try the half-way being. However, let the man teaze if he will; do not think of being married until your health is perfectly confirmed,—I would not for the world. ’Tis so late in the season, ’tis not possible I can come to see you this fall, even tho’ there should be two weddings in November. And so you talk of spending the winter with me,—how you love to tantalize!—and wish me to give you the pleasure of refusing me. You know I should be delighted to have you, but you know you never mean to visit New York as Miss Southgate again. Somebody would put on a graver face than he did last fall on a like occasion, and as he had _as much influence_ then as to counteract my wishes, I won’t subject myself to the mortification of another defeat now I know his power to be much greater. However I won’t ask, tho’ I shall be very happy to have you with me. As for news, you give me more than I can you. We have left Rockaway more than a week ago, still exiled from our home by this dreadful calamity. We are at lodgings in Jamaica, where we shall