absence from her is likely to have on your position in society, and though as yet you have only been about three weeks away, people are talking and will no doubt continue to talk. If you find your old home an agreeable change from town life, pray allow your aunt to join you there. She will do so, I am sure, with pleasure. She misses you very greatly, and I will never believe that you would wilfully cause her needless trouble. I may not, I know, express my own feelings on the subject, as I should probably only incur your scorn or displeasure, but simply as an honest man who wishes you nothing but good, I ask you quietly to consider to what misrepresentation and calumny you voluntarily expose yourself by running away, as it were, from a rightful and affectionate protector and second mother like your good aunt, and living all alone in the country without any one of your immediate circle of friends within calling distance. Is there a more compromising or more ludicrous position than that of the independent and defenceless female? I think not! She is the laughing-stock of the clubs, and the perennial joke of the comic press. Pray do not place yourself in the same category with the despised and unlovely of your sex, but remain on the height where Nature placed you, and where your charm and intelligence can best secure acknowledgment from the less gifted and fortunate. Entreating your pardon for any word or phrase in this letter which may unluckily chance to annoy you, I am. my dear Miss Maryllia,--Yours with the utmost devotion," "ROXMOUTH."