Mother to Eliza Woolsey Howland at Fishkill.
New York, Thursday, Oct. 17th.
My dear Eliza: I must write a line to you this afternoon, not only to congratulate you and dear Joe upon being together again in your own pleasant home but to tell you how charmed I am at the prospect of seeing you here. We began to pack up immediately on the receipt of our last letter from Washington and came down from Lenox as soon as possible, reaching home yesterday in time for a six o’clock dinner. I wrote to old William we were coming and he had everything very nice and clean. . . . Mary received our letter last night, telling her we should be in town, so that this morning the first thing, Georgy–who had gone right out to Mary –and Carry rushed in upon us, and right glad were we to see Georgy again, and to find her looking so well; not entirely grey-headed and wrinkled with age from the cares and anxieties of her Washington campaign, as we expected! but really looking better and certainly fatter, than when she left home. It is delightful to hear her account of things, and it will be very charming when you are here with us too, to join in the pow-wows. We are all eager listeners to Washington doings, and I cannot bear to be out of the room a minute while Georgy is talking. . . .
Do give my kind remembrance to Thomson and his wife; I have a great respect for him. I hope you will come to us as soon as you can. We shall be all ready for you, except the “nicknacks,” and I don’t mean to take any of them out. I found William had opened Joe’s likeness, and set it out, as a delicate little attention to the family! Hatty waits to take my note.
Ever affectionately yours,
Mother.