does not talk well. He hates talking parties, he says, and never means to
go to one again.

Here is also a letter from Esther W., who may speak for herself, and the
two may well enough be put upon the same file, and be answered together:--

"Please listen patiently to a confession. I have what seems to me very
natural,--a strong desire to be liked by those whom I meet around me in
society of my own age; but, unfortunately, when with them my manners have
often been unnatural and constrained, and I have found myself thinking of
myself, and what others were thinking of me, instead of entering into the
enjoyment of the moment as others did. I seem to have naturally very
little independence, and to be very much afraid of other people, and of
their opinion. And when, as you might naturally infer from the above, I
often have not been successful in gaining the favor of those around me,
then I have spent a great deal of time in the selfish indulgence of 'the
blues,' and in philosophizing on the why and the wherefore of some
persons' agreeableness and popularity and others' unpopularity."

There, is not that a good letter from a nice girl?

Will you please to see, dear Tom, and you also, dear Esther, that both of
you, after the fashion of your age, are confounding the method with the
thing. You see how charmingly Mrs. Pallas sits back and goes on with her
crochet while Dr. Volta talks to her; and then, at the right moment, she
says just the right thing, and makes him laugh, or makes him cry, or makes
him defend himself, or makes him explain himself; and you think that there
is a particular knack or rule for doing this so glibly, or that she has a
particular genius for it which you are not born to, and therefore you both
propose hermitages for yourselves because you cannot do as she does. Dear