It accounts to us why you have made so long a stay at Concord....

So far as we can judge from your representations (which are all we have to judge from), we cannot refuse you our approbation, and we hope that the course, on which you have entered with your characteristic rapidity and decision, will be pursued and issue in a manner which will conduce to the happiness of all concerned....
"We think _her_ parents should be made acquainted with the state of the business, as she is so young and the thing so important to them." The son answers this letter, from Walpole, New Hampshire, on September 7, 1816, thus naively: "You think the parents of the young lady should be made acquainted with the state of the business.

I feel some degree of awkwardness as it respects that part of the affair; I don't know the manner in which it ought to be done.

I wish you would have the goodness to write me immediately (at Walpole, to care of Thomas Bellows, Esq.) and inform me what I should say.

Might I communicate the information by writing ?" Here he gives a detailed account of the family, and, for the first time, mentions the young lady's name--Lucretia Pickering Walker--and continues:-- "You ask how the family have treated me.