LETTER XLI.
A greeting and a kiss to you, my Agatha, on this cool, beautiful Sunday morning, which I am celebrating upon a rock in the midst of the sea, surrounded by glittering, dancing waves. I am with Mrs. B., in her cottage at Nahant, a little bathing-place a few miles north of Boston. The aristocracy of Boston have here their villas and cottages where they, for a couple of months in the year, enjoy the sea-air or bathing; and here, at the present moment, in these pretty dwellings, embowered by verdant, fragrant plants among the bare rocks, a select little party is assembled. Here is that splendid old Mrs. L. (the mother of Mrs. B.) in her cottage; here is Mr. Prescott, the excellent historian, with his family; the preacher Bellows, from New York; Mr. Longfellow, Mrs. S., with several other interesting persons, and the intercourse among them is easy and charming, with little dinner-parties or tea-suppers in the evenings. The Americans are in a high degree a social people, and they do not like to shut themselves up, or to shut their friends out.
I came hither that I might see Mrs. B. again, who was so infinitely kind to me; came hither from Boston, where I spent a week with my excellent friend, Dr. O., who, when he had made me strong as his patient, made me happy as his guest in his house, where I had merely one standing quarrel with him, and that was because he had not earlier made me acquainted with his wife, one of those happy, amiable characters, who are a fountain of joy and peace to all who surround them. Another singularly happy and affectionate married pair.
