Page:The Homes of the New World- Vol. I.djvu/166

 the next morning. And now this evening in another hemisphere, alone with a beloved young wife—beautiful, dissimilar pictures of life!

In the morning I shall leave this family and Cambridge. I have visited many homes in this neighbourhood; all are alike in the internal construction, neatness, arrangement and comfort; in some there is a little more, in others a little less beauty; in that lies the principal difference. Longfellow's is among the most beautiful and the most artistic homes I have seen here. One beautiful decoration which I have seen in the homes here, as well as in the other small houses of New England which I have visited, is a large bouquet, a regularly gigantic bouquet of the beautiful grasses of the country, and which, if we are to judge by these specimens, are of gigantic growth. These are placed as decorations in vases in the parlour, and used also in other ways. One often sees little humming birds, not of course alive, fluttering among the grasses. I have seen also groups of the beautiful birds of the country, and shells, used for the decoration of rooms, and these seem to me excellent, and in the best taste. We, even in Sweden, might have such, if we would set more store on that which is our own—through the gift and favour of God.

I cannot tell you how kind the Lowells were and are to me. I have sketches of them in my album and in my heart, and you shall see them in both.

I must now say farewell, and kiss you and mamma in spirit. I always fancy myself writing to both at once. May I only soon receive good letters from my dear ones! That would be the best Christmas-box that I could receive.

I had almost forgotten—and that I ought not to do—to tell you of a visit I have had this evening from the Quaker and poet Whittier, one of the purest and most gifted of the poetical minds of the Northern States,