University of Virginia Library

LETTER CXXXVI.

Your short and melancholy letter of December 29th,
excepted, I have received not a line from you since your departure
for Tennessee. Judge my uneasiness at this circumstance.
Surely if you were ill you would get some one
of the family to write, if it were but a line. I last night
sprained both my thumbs, and several fingers of each hand,
in trying to save my face from the consequences of a fall occasioned
by treading, at the top of a steep staircase, on my
own tail—the surtouts now reaching to the shoe buckles, and
being somewhat a better defence to gentlemen's legs than
that afforded to the feet of ladies by their petticoats; ladies
having, you know, no legs.

I shall write again as soon as I get back to the city of O.
Many kind inquiries after you by Sterrett R., Dr. G., &c. &c.
Poor N. is destroyed body and mind by paralysis. Miss E.,
I am told, is as beautiful as ever. I came to R's. country-house,
this day week, and escorted Madame hither on Thursday
last. We return to-morrow. My best regards to all
the family. Poor Sally! I had flattered myself that she
would return to Virginia, and make one of our family!—
but—Farewell.