You won’t write a line I find without a punctual answer, letter for letter. Could not you make any allowance for domestic engagements, etc., etc., and write me at present two for one, or were you afraid of the precedent; I might claim as a right hereafter what I owed merely to your indulgence. I have anxiously wished to hear again from little William Brown, for, notwithstanding your flattering accounts of his returning health, I felt so fully persuaded he would never recover that I could not but think he would relapse again. How happy I shall be to hear that my fears are groundless! If you have not written again before this reaches you, lose no time but write at once. I do not write to Octavia till I know whether she is in Boston or Portland. You must make it a rule, Miranda, to write me once a fortnight whether I answer or not. Charles King will tell you all the news of the fashionable world. I have been in no parties yet. The Theatre is quite the rage. I have been several times,—you have no idea how much it is improved, entirely altered,—looks light and gay,—a perfect contrast to its former appearance. Cooper draws crowded houses every night—I have been much delighted. Mr. Wolsey Rogers’ approaching nuptials seem anticipated as the opening of the winter campaign; of course the event is much talked of, not a mantua-maker in the city but will tell you some particulars of the bride’s wardrobe,—length of her train, etc., etc.;—a fine lady here, as Mustapha says, is estimated by the length of her tail. If it was not for using a most homely proverb, I would say “Every dog has his day.” Here was our friend John Murray and his bride last winter, making all ring; this winter quietly settled in Nassau St., just what I call comfortable, (you have not seen this new play about _comfortable_.) Poor Sterlitz, who has no way to discover his taste or judgment but by finding fault with everything, seems quite in a _fuze_ (is there such a word?) that Mr. Murray prefers his own comfort to dashing in high style. I suppose, Mrs. B. begins to feel all the palpitations and trepidations of a doating anxious mother in introducing her favorite daughter to the world. The next winter is the all-important era for the exhibition. Miss A., in my opinion, will make a little coquette—the bud seems expanding even now,—that extreme simplicity, which her mother encouraged by always talking of it before her, as if she was too young to understand, is now changing for an affectation of simplicity. I hope she will correct it; time will convince her that simplicity is only charming in inexperienced youth, or rather the kind of simplicity which she possesses. There _is_ a simplicity which gives a softness, a _tone_ (as a painter would say) to the whole character, but it springs uncontaminated from the guileless purity of the mind; all affectation of this serves but as a