1Abigail Adams Smith to Lucy Cranch, 14 July 1787 (Adams Papers)
most readily my Dear Lucy do I acknowledge the tittle of friend with which you address me—and am very happy to have preserved your esteem thus far in Life— I wish it had been my fate to have enjoyed the Society of my friends more than it has,— three years have now elapsed since I parted with every female friend that I had acquired from my earliest infancy to the age of Nineteen; and I have not...