I spent some charming weeks this summer at the Rawley Springs,
where I drank the pure mineral water, climbed the hills, and took
long rides on my black pony Selim. Now I am again at home, and
mother says she expects such a healthy hearty girl will make great
progress.
One peculiarity about our girls would strike the New York girls as
queer. It is their names. You see, in Virginia we are very proud of
the old families, and care a great deal for good blood. So when
there are not enough boys to have the family names, the girls have
to wear them, and we often have Parker and Randolph and Tucker and
Talbot and Gary among the girls as Christian names. But the names
do not spoil the girls, nor make them unfeminine. Mother says
Virginia is not ashamed of her daughters, for they are so womanly.
I hope to learn to be a good housekeeper as well as a good scholar.
I do not have very much time, but I help to give out flour and eggs
to the cook, I often attend to the parlors, and I am learning how
to cut and make my own dresses. One of the girls in my class says
she means to be a missionary when she grows up, and thinks she will
go to China, as she read a book she liked very much, called
_Fourteen Months in Canton_. Do you think we gain much by reading
books of travels?
Why do all who write to Our Post-office Box tell how old they are?
I do not mean to tell my age, for I do not think it makes much
difference to strangers whether I am twelve or sixteen.