Sanbornton: 1836
The new episode started off gaily, with all the charm of a village comedy of manners.
The tone is set in Martha’s first letter to her brother George after the family had moved into the new farm. “I cannot tell you how I like,” she wrote, “for our acquaintance is yet so limited. . . . The gentleman that teaches the village school is boarding with us—you know we are very partial to that class of people.”1
Three months later a letter from Abbie (who for a time was calling herself Abba) showed that good progress was being made toward the social conquest of Sanbornton Bridge. Her account of the situation might almost have been lifted out of Jane Austen:
We go on finely here, almost as well as we could wish. The people are very kind and hospitable, we find society very agreeable and refined; but we associate with none but the first you may depend. We have been treated, since we came to this place, with every token of respect, by all classes of the people; but we have not showed out much yet, nor do not intend to at present, for we think a gradual rise in the esteem of people, more commendable, than a precipitate ascension.