Boston, June 5, 1843.
dear Miss Potter,—Accept my warmest thanks for the very kind manner in which you have expressed an interest in our happiness.
It is all the more welcome in coming from a stranger upon whom I have no past claim to kindle a kindly regard, and touches my heart deeply.
Among the many blessings which the new world I have entered reveals to me, a new heritage of friends is a choice one.
Those most dear to Henry, most closely linked with his early associations, I am, naturally, most anxious to know and love,—and I trust an opportunity will bring us together before long.
But I should feel no little timidity in being known to you and his family; a dread that loving him as you do I might not fulfil all the exactions of your hearts; were not such fears relieved by the generous determination you have shown to approve his choice,—upon faith in him. To one who has known him so long and so well, I need not attempt to speak of my happiness in possessing such a heart, —nor of my infinite gratitude to the Giver of every good gift for bestowing upon me the power of rendering This text is part of:
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strikes the reader as singularly winning and womanly.
This also is addressed to the elder sister of the first Mrs. Longfellow.
Boston and New York, Hougton, Mifflin and company, 1902.
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