many relations both on the father's and mother's side, and with these she was upon as intimate terms as circumstances would allow. The distance between the homes of the young people was, however, too great, and the means of their parents too narrow, to admit of very frequent personal intercourse, the substitute for which was a rapid interchange of written communication. "The women of the last century," observes Mr. Charles Francis Adams in his memoir of his grandmother, "were more remarkable for their letter-writing propensities, than the novel-reading and more pretending daughters of this era: their field was larger, and the stirring events of the times made it an object of more interest. Now, the close connection between all parts of this country, and rapid means of transmitting intelligence through the medium of telegraphs and newspapers, renders the slow process of writing letters unnecessary, save in instances of private importance. The frugal habits of the sparsely settled country afforded little material for the fashionable chit-chat which forms so large a part of the social life of to-day, and the limited education of woman was another drawback to the indulgence of a pleasure in which they really excelled. Upon what, then, do we base the assertion that they were remarkable for their habits of writing? Even though self-taught, the young ladies of Massachusetts were certainly readers, and their taste was not for the feeble and nerveless sentiments, but was derived from the deepest wells of English literature. Almost every house in the colony possessed
