Page:The Homes of the New World- Vol. I.djvu/138

Rh and neatness; but also, at the same time, I fancied by a something of stiffness and emptiness which would be oppressive to me. After this we continued our way to Uxbridge, where we were to keep the Thanksgiving festival.

I saw from the railroad the paternal home of Marcus S.; that country house and home where he had been brought up with many brothers and sisters, and to which his looks were now directed with affection. The moon arose and shone upon the waters of the Blackstone river, along which the railroad runs. Lights glimmered from the factories on the other side of the river. I saw this landscape, as in a dream, hour after hour, and rather saw than felt its beauty, because the motion and the rattle of the railway carriage produced a fatiguing and deafening effect.

We took up our quarters with a newly married couple, a physician and his little wife, the eldest niece of Marcus S. They had built their house according to one of Mr. Downing's designs, and laid out their garden also after his plan; and here they lived without a servant, the wife herself performing all the in-doors work. This is very much the custom in the small homes of the New England states, partly from economic causes, and partly from the difficulty there is in getting good servants. I slept in a little chamber without a fire-place, according to the custom of the country: but the night was so very cold that I could not sleep a wink; besides which, I was visited during the long night by some not very pleasing doubts as to how in the long run I should be able to get on in this country, where there is so much that I am unaccustomed to. When the sun however rose, it shone upon a little white church; which with its taper spire rising out of a pine-wood upon a height, just before my window, and the whole landscape lit up by the morning sun, presented so fresh, so northern, so Swedish an