This letter, then, we suppose written by a very old Forfarshire lady to her niece in England, and perhaps the young lady who received it might answer it in a style as strange to her aunt as her aunt’s is to her, especially if she belonged to that lively class of our young female friends who indulge a little in phraseology which they have imbibed from their brothers, or male cousins, who have, perhaps for their amusement, encouraged them in its use. The answer, then, might be something like this; and without meaning to be severe or satirical upon our young lady friends, I may truly say that, though I never heard from one young lady all these fast terms, I have heard the most of them separately from many:—
“My Dear Aunty—Many thanks for your kind letter and its enclosure. From my not knowing Scotch, I am not quite up to the mark, and some of the expressions I don’t twig at all. Willie is absent for a few days, but when he returns home he will explain it; he is quite awake on all such things. I am glad you are pleased that Willie and I are now spliced. I am well aware that you will hear me spoken of in some quarters as a fast young lady. A man here had the impudence to say that when he visited my husband’s friends he would tell them so. I quietly and civilly replied, ‘You be blowed!’ So don’t believe him. We get on famously at present. Willie comes home from the office every afternoon at five. We generally take a walk before dinner, and read and work if we don’t go out; and I assure you we are very jolly. We don’t know many people here yet. It is rather a swell neighbourhood; and if we can’t get in with the nobs, depend upon it we will never take up with any society that is decidedly snobby. I daresay the girl you are sending will be very useful