Page:The Homes of the New World- Vol. I.djvu/96

 as well as a good citizen even beyond the sphere of her own house—and every noble woman ought to be the same—was an amiable hostess to me; and the only thing which I lacked was, that I was unable to talk more with her. But these schools, asylums, etc., they are in the highest degree excellent and estimable: but ah! how they weary me! Mrs. S, conducted me to the house of Miss Lynch, where I saw a whole crowd of people, and among them Bryant the poet, who has a beautiful characteristic head, with silvery locks.

From Miss Lynch's I was taken by a kind and respectable professor,—Hackitt, I believe, he was called—to the Elysian Fields, a park-like tract, on an island near New York, and so called from their beautiful idyllian scenery; and they were beautiful as an idyll,—and the day, and the air—nay, my child, we have nothing like them in the Old World! at least, I have never felt any such. I drink in this air as I would drink nectar, and feel it almost like a pleasant intoxication: it must belong to this time of the year, and to the magic life of this Indian summer. I wandered in the Elysian Fields with really Elysian feelings, saw flocks of white sails coming down the Hudson, like winged birds of peace, and I allowed my thoughts to float up it to the friends there, the new and yet so dear; far from me, and yet so near. It was an enchanting day that day in the Elysian Fields of the new world. My professor was good and wise, as Mentor, in “Les Aventures de Télémaque,” and I fancy wiser, because he did not talk, but followed me with fatherly kindness, and seemed to enjoy my pleasure. In the evening he conducted me across East River to Rose Cottage, in that quiet Brooklyn; and there I shall rest some days a little apart from the world.

Now a word about my new friends, Marcus and Rebecca. They are a very peculiar kind of people; they have a something about them remarkably simple