where am I going to? But wherever I may be going now, I did not go to
bundle with her--in the same room with her father and mother, my kind
_host_ and _hostess_ too! I thought of that--I thought of more
besides--to struggle with the passions of nature; to clasp Jemima in my
arms--to--do what? you'll ask--why, to do--nothing! for if amid all
these temptations, the lovely Jemima had melted into kindness, she had
been an outcast from the world--treated with contempt, abused by
violence, and left perhaps to perish! No, Jemima; I could have endured
all this to have been blest with you, but it was too vast a sacrifice,
when you was to be the victim! Suppose how great the test of virtue must
be, or how cold the American constitution, when this unaccountable
custom is in hospitable repute, and perpetual practice."[29]

Again, in a subsequent letter, the Lieutenant, after describing a New
England sleighing frolic, says: "In England this would be esteemed
extremely imprudent, and attended with dangerous consequences; but,
after what I have related respecting _bundling_, I need not say, in how
innocent a view this is looked upon. Apropos, as to that custom, along
the sea coast, by a continual intercourse among Europeans, it is in some
measure abolished; but they still retain one something similar, which is
termed _tarrying_. When a young man is enamored of a woman, and wishes
to marry her, he proposes the affair to her parents (without whose
consent no marriage, in this colony, can take place); if they have no
objections, he is allowed to tarry with her one night, in order to make
his court. At the usual time the old couple retire to bed, leaving the
young ones to settle matters as they can, who having sat up as long as
they think proper, get into bed together also, but without putting off
their under garments; to prevent scandal. If the parties agree, it is
all very well, the banns are published, and they married without delay;
if not, they part, and possibly never see each other again, unless,