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“I have got no further than the first vol

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of Virgil but was most agreeably disappointed to find myself instructed in agriculture as well as entertained by his charming penn, for I am persuaded ‘tho he wrote for Italy it will in many Instances suit Carolina. I had never perused those books before, and imagined I should immediately enter upon battles, storms and tempests, that put mee in a maze, and make mee shudder while I read. But the calm and pleasing diction of pastoral and gardening agreeably presented themselves not unsuitably to this charming season of the year, with w

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I am so much delighted that had I butt the fine soft Language of our Poet to paint it properly, I should give you but little respite ’till you came into the country, and attended to the beauties of pure Nature unassisted by Art.”

A little later comes this letter, giving a clear idea of the breadth of the girl’s scheme of social service as well as her thoughtfulness and individuality:

Dear Miss Bartlett:

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After a pleasant passage of about an hour we arrived safe at home as I hope you and Mrs. Pinckney did at Belmont; but this place appeared much less agreeable than when I left it, having lost the company that then enlivened it, the Scene is indeed much changed, for instead of the Easy and agreeable conversation of our Friends, I am engaged with the rudiments of the law, to w

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I am yet but a stranger.

However I hope in a short time with the help of Dictionary’s french and English, we shall be better friends; nor shall I grudge a little pains and application, if that will make me useful to any of my poor Neighbors, we have Some in this Neighbourhood, who have a little Land a few Slaves and Cattle to give their children, that never think of making a will ’till they come upon a sick bed, and find it too Expensive to send to town for a Lawyer.

If you will not laugh too immoderately at mee I’ll Trust you with a Secrett. I have made two wills already! I know I have done no harm, for I con’d my lesson very perfect, and know how to convey by will, Estates, Real and Personal, and never forgett in its proper place, him and his heirs forever, no that ’tis to be signed by three witnesses, in presence of one another; bu

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the most comfortable rememberance of all is that Doct

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Wood says, the Law makes great allowance for Last Wills and Testaments, presuming the Testator could not have Council learned in the Law. But after all what can I do if a poor Creature lies a-dying, and their family takes it into their head that I can serve them. I can’t refuse; but when they are well, and able to employ a Lawyer, I always shall.

A widow hereabouts with a pretty little fortune, teazed me intolerable to draw her a marriage settlement, but it was out of my depth and I absolutely refused it, so she got an abler hand to do it, indeed she could afford it, but I could not gett off from being one of the Trustees to her Settlement and an old gentleman the other.

I shall begin to think myself an old woman before I am well a young one, having these weighty affairs upon my hands.

From this solemn epistle it is amusing to turn for a moment to Colonel Lucas’s matrimonial plan for his daughter. In those days girls were married at a very early age, and it is small wonder that Colonel Lucas spent much thought on the problem of finding a suitable lover for his favourite daughter, before he broached the subject to her, for marriages were generally arranged by a girl’s parents in those days. And that Eliza might have some choice in the matter Colonel Lucas picked out two suitors and wrote to her about them. How she felt on the subject the following letter shows: She says: