1859 letter from Elizabeth Angell

Transcribed in part:"Dear Mary,...I am spending the summer with my sister, Mrs. Lippitt - Now, please don't say: "Emily must have leisure if she is visiting" - for Lizzie is housekeeping and there are many things in which I can assist her. Then the neighbors are very social...One letter to Martha Jaqueth ....I am in Phenix, Rhode Island, a pleasant manufacturing village about twelve miles from Providence where most of all of my relatives live and where the name Angell is almost as common as Smith - Lizzie has a pretty cottage out of the village, but near enough that we can hear the pleasant sound of voices in the morning and evening when the factory is closed. We had the most fun last Winter watching our neighbors, and fancying what manner of people they were...Maria Stebbins...Lucy Newton..Oh it is like old times to meet the Newtons again...I hear from school occasionally - through Libbie Burlingame at the Institute and Martha Jaqueth at Home Cottage. ..Nettie Sterling is an excellent scholar...I met Mrs. Gertrude McEntree in the street last Spring....she...invited me to call upon her at the Studio buildings...Yesterday...the most beautiful rainbow that I ever saw - it spanned most half the sky with most brilliant colors. Like a grand triumphant arch - One might fancy that such was the entrance to Heaven...I presume you remember our old school acquaintance "Thaddeus of Warsaw," Libbie Burlingame writes he is as short as ever, rather fleshy and very uninteresting...If you should look upon me now you would see a young lady of twenty with her hair short and plain behind her ears, just like a childs. Indeed I pass for almost a child now....It is impossible for me to conduct myself for my years, and yet it troubles me to to be thought so juvenile...Lizzie