Page:The Homes of the New World- Vol. I.djvu/290

Rh acquaintance in Boston, the Longfellows, both man and wife, and Professor and Mrs. How. I always felt animated, both heart and soul, when I was with them. Mrs. How, a most charming little creature, fresh and frank in character, and endowed with a delicate sense of the beautiful, I could really get very fond of.

I have declined the offers of several portrait-painters, but I could not help sitting to one in Boston, a Mr. Furniss, an agreeable young man; and he has taken a pleasing likeness of me. People say it is very like, and it is to be engraved.

I now bid you farewell; embrace and kiss mamma's hand in spirit. May you be able soon to tell me that you are quite well! I salute every spring day that comes, on your account. And we have had here some beautiful, vernally mild days, but the weather is now again cold, and as severe, and keen, and snowy as it ever is at this season in Sweden. But it will soon change again. And how I long for the South!

I have rested now thoroughly for some days, and I feel myself stronger each day. May my dear Agatha only feel the same!

P.S.—Mrs. W. H. of Charleston has written to me and kindly invited me to her house there. But——I must see her first to know whether we can get on well together. I shall therefore, in the first instance, go to an hotel in the city, and remain there for a few days in the most perfect quiet, and in the enjoyment of freedom and solitude. Then we shall see!