attachment. I despise the married man or woman who harbors an inclination to partake of separate pleasures.

I am told that a servant man inquires for me below—the messenger of some enamoured swain, I suppose. I will step down and learn what message he brings.

Nothing extraordinary; it is only a card of compliments from a Mr. Emmons, a respectable merchant of this city, requesting the honor to wait on me to the assembly this evening—a welcome request, which I made no hesitation to grant. If I must resign these favorite amusements, let me enjoy as large a share as possible till the time arrives. I must repair to the toilet, and adorn for a new conquest the person of

ELIZA WHARTON.

LETTER XXXI.

TO MISS ELIZA WHARTON.

HARTFORD.

I am very happy to find you are in so good spirits, Eliza, after parting with your favorite swain; for I perceive that he is really the favorite of your fancy, though your heart cannot esteem him; and, independent of that, no sensations can be durable.

I can tell you some news of this strange man. He has arrived, and taken possession of his seat. Having given general invitations, he has been called upon and welcomed by most of the neighboring gentry. Yesterday he made an elegant entertainment. Friend George (as you call him) and I were of the number who had cards. Twenty-one couple went, I am told. We did not go. I consider my time too valuable to be spent in cultivating acquaintance with a person from whom neither pleasure nor improvement is to be expected. His profuseness may bribe the unthinking multitude to show him respect; but he must know that, though

  "Places and honors have been bought for gold,
  Esteem and love were never to be sold."
I look upon the vicious habits and abandoned character of Major Sanford to have more pernicious effects on society than the perpetrations of the robber and the assassin. These, when detected, are rigidly punished by the laws of the land. If their lives be spared, they are shunned by society, and treated with every mark of disapprobation and contempt. But, to the disgrace of humanity and virtue, the assassin of honor, the wretch who breaks the peace of families, who robs virgin innocence of its charms, who triumphs over the ill-placed confidence of the inexperienced, unsuspecting, and too credulous fair, is received and caressed, not only by his own sex, to which he is a reproach, but even by ours, who have every conceivable reason to despise and avoid him. Influenced