in instance, I must have sacrificed my
own happiness or incurred their censure. I am young, gay, volatile. A
melancholy event has lately extricated me from those shackles which
parental authority had imposed on my mind. Let me, then, enjoy that
freedom which I so highly prize. Let me have opportunity, unbiased by
opinion, to gratify my natural disposition in a participation of those
pleasures which youth and innocence afford." "Of such pleasures, no one,
my dear, would wish to deprive you; but beware, Eliza! Though strewed
with flowers, when contemplated by your lively imagination, it is, after
all, a slippery, thorny path. The round of fashionable dissipation is
dangerous. A phantom is often pursued, which leaves its deluded votary
the real form of wretchedness." She spoke with an emphasis, and, taking
up her candle, wished me a good night. I had not power to return the
compliment. Something seemingly prophetic in her looks and expressions
cast a momentary gloom upon my mind; but I despise those contracted
ideas which confine virtue to a cell. I have no notion of becoming a
recluse. Mrs. Richman has ever been a beloved friend of mine; yet I
always thought her rather prudish. Adieu.

ELIZA WHARTON.

LETTER VI.

TO THE SAME.

NEW HAVEN.

I had scarcely seated myself at the breakfast table this morning when a
servant entered with a card of invitation from Major Sanford, requesting
the happiness of my hand this evening at a ball given by Mr. Atkins,
about three miles from this. I showed the billet to Mrs. Richman,
saying, "I have not much acquaintance with this gentleman, madam; but I
suppose his character sufficiently respectable to warrant an affirmative
answer." "He is a gay man, my dear, to say no more; and such are the
companions we wish when we join a party avowedly formed for pleasure." I
then stepped into my apartment, wrote an answer, and despatched the
servant. When I returned to the parlor, something disapprobating
appeared in the countenances of both my friends. I endeavored, without
seeming to observe, to dissipate it by chitchat; but they were better
pleased with each other than with me, and, soon rising, walked into the
garden, and left me to amuse myself alone. My eyes followed them
through the window. "Happy pair!" said I. "Should it ever be my fate to
wear the hymeneal chain, may I be thus united! The purest and most
ardent affection, the greatest consonance of taste and disposition, and
the most