Remember it takes a great many hundred dollars to _make_ and to _keep_ the pot a-boiling.
"I wish to see the young lady who has captivated you so much.

I hope she loves religion, and that, if you and she form a connection for life, some _five or six years hence_, you may go hand in hand to that better world where they neither marry nor are given in marriage....
"You have not given us any satisfaction in respect to many things about the young lady which you ought to suppose we should be anxious to know.
All you have told us is that she is handsome and amiable.

These are good as far as they go, but there are a great many etcs., etcs., that we want to know.
"Is she acquainted with domestic affairs?
Does she respect and love religion?
How many brothers and sisters has she?
How old are they?
Is she healthy?
How old are her parents?
What will they be likely to do for her some years hence, say when she is twenty years old?
"In your next answer at least some of these questions.

You see your mother has not lived twenty-seven years in New England without learning to ask questions." These questions he had already answered in a letter which must have crossed his mother's.
On September 23, 1816, he writes from Windsor, Vermont:-- "I am still here but shall probably leave in a week or two.

I long to get home, or, at least, as far on my way as _Concord_.