Page:The Homes of the New World- Vol. I.djvu/228

 has its home in the house, and is the most excellent house-dog I ever made acquaintance with.

Mrs. B.'s little daughter, Julia, is remarkably like her grandmother in her turn of mind, her liveliness and even her wit. This charming little girl makes the most amusing puns without being at all aware of it.

One day when there was good sledging, Mrs. B. took me to see a sledge-drive on the Neck, a narrow promontory which is the scene of action for the sledging of the Boston fashionables. The young gentlemen in their light elegant carriages, with their spirited horses, flew like the wind. It looked charming and animated. I once saw one of the giant sledges, in which were seated from fifty to a hundred persons. This was drawn by four horses, and certainly above fifty young ladies in white, and with pink silk bonnets and fluttering ribbons, filled the body of the carriage. It looked like an immense basket of flowers, and had also a splendid and beautiful appearance. But I am not fond of seeing people in a crowd, not even as a crowd of flowers; a crowd nullifies individuality. More beautiful sledging than that of the Swedish “Racken,” where a gentleman and lady sit side by side, on bear or leopard skins, drawn by a pair of spirited horses covered with swinging white nets,—more beautiful carriages and driving than these have I never seen.

There has been this winter no good sledging in Boston; nor has the winter been severe. Yet, nevertheless, it is with difficulty that I can bear the air as soon as it becomes cold. I who have such a love of the Swedish winter, and who breathe easily in our severest weather, have really difficulty in breathing here when the atmosphere is as cold as it is just now,—it feels so keen and severe. It seems to me as if the old Puritanic austere spirit had entered or rather gone forth into the air and penetrated it; and such an atmosphere does not suit me. Of a certainty