till I return home.

O mamma, I am embarrassed about this man. His worth I acknowledge; nay,
I esteem him very highly. But can there be happiness with such a
disparity of dispositions?

I shall soon return to the bosom of domestic tranquillity, to the arms
of maternal tenderness, where I can deliberate and advise at leisure
about this important matter. Till when, I am, &c.,

ELIZA WHARTON.


LETTER XXXIX.

TO MR. T. SELBY.

HAMPSHIRE.

Dear sir: I believe that I owe you an apology for my long silence. But
my time has been much engrossed of late, and my mind much more so. When
it will be otherwise I cannot foresee. I fear, my friend, that there is
some foundation for your suspicions respecting my beloved Eliza. What
pity it is that so fair a form, so accomplished a mind, should be
tarnished in the smallest degree by the follies of coquetry! If this be
the fact, which I am loath to believe, all my regard for her shall never
make me the dupe of it.

When I arrived at her residence at New Haven, where I told you in my
last I was soon to go, she gave me a most cordial reception. Her whole