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Your suggestion not to "get married" till I get away from Grouts, is certainly to the point, & well founded. I presume that it will be strictly followed: though my predecessor got married here! to a sister of the tavernkeeper's wife who waited on the tables ignorant & coarse too. but so was he in many respects. Really though I begin to "take it to heart", among the Multitude of Councilors. Not only Lucy & Samuel, I could get round that; but you & Joseph, and now even Anne, away from Wisconsin. What shall I do about it. The fact is; (I do not know but I am little too nice about it: as my misfortune has always been in every thing else to have my tastes far above my means) but I really do not know of any body that I want. There may be some that want me: but that is quite a different matter. There was a young lady in Turner that I could have liked considerable, perhaps did; but she was engaged to a young Engineer before I ever saw her; a friend of mine, and I couldn't in honor "cut him out," as the chaps say. They are Married, a year since, I couldn't go to the wedding: was? in N.H. He is Sec. Eng. on the Portsmouth & Concord R.R. She is a grand woman, & one of the best friends I have got any where. She had a sister younger & prettier I suppose than "Nancy"; who was perhaps designed for me: A very good girl too: but then I never liked her as well as she me. I never repented much more of any little accident, than I have of kissing her cheek one particular time. It hurt me when I heard how she cried when I did not go back to Turner to teach the next Fall.

 I do not know as there is any body else in all "Down East" that I care much for. Josephine of Topsham too, whom Anne once recommended to me, was engaged to my particular friend Morse, before I ever met with her.

I have certainly met no very "bright particular" Star since I have been in Mass. If I was most obliged to choose from so limited a field, I should feel rather sick. I guess it would have to be that Miss Dutton you perhaps saw when you were at Northfield. I guess she isn't but 17 years old, perhaps 18. She is a good girl though and I like her folks first rate. There, I believe I have made a "clean breast" on the subject of "Matrimony"! Pleas you & Lucy laugh at it , & I will ----