Page:The Homes of the New World- Vol. I.djvu/58

Rh silence should always come over me in such gay parties, amid natural scenes. And here I ought to have been alone with the magnificence of Nature. One little moment, partly alone and partly with Mr. Downing, who knows how to be gay and jocular with the gay, and silent with the silent, was to me the crowning luxury of the excursion, during which there was no lack of champagne and joke, and more substantial fare yet for the palate, together with polite gentlemen and lovely ladies, both young and old. Yes, lovely ladies there certainly are here, but rather pretty and delicate than, properly speaking, beautiful. A really beautiful woman I have not yet seen here, but neither have I seen a single ill-favoured countenance or deformed person. That which especially pleases me is the easy, unembarrassed, and yet modestly kind intercourse which exists between the young of both sexes.

Completely weary were we when, after our excursion to the hills, we reached home in the evening, and beautiful was rest in that lovely quiet home with the kind Downings. That which my mind has retained of the excursion is the view of that bright river, bursting forth from the gloomy forests of earth. It gleams, as it were, within me.

I parted from Miss Sedgwick with the feeling that I should never like to part with her. Her niece, Susan, was an agreeable well-educated girl. A young gentleman, who is said to be her lover, followed her hither.

A few days after our excursion to South Beacon we went up the Hudson to visit a family of the name of D., who belong to the aristocracy of these shores. We set off in good time in the morning; the air was delicious; the wind still, and the shores shone out in the utmost splendour of their autumnal pomp beneath a somewhat subdued sunshine. The sails on the river scarcely moved, and above the heights lay a sort of sunny