Page:The Homes of the New World- Vol. II.djvu/106

Rh “I am very much disappointed in you! for the great grand-daughter of the great Miles Standish ought at least to have been six feet high!” But like a little descendant of the great Vikings, I did not think that it became me to do battle with a great grand-daughter of the Pilgrims about our respective heights, and therefore I merely indicated my satisfaction both by glance and lips, which she could explain as she pleased. She explained it probably to her advantage, because she went on to communicate to me in a weighty manner the business which now had brought her to Congress. The little lady was grave and important. Puritanic to the last crumb; but not, I should imagine, very like the old Puritan her ancestor.

I must now give you a little domestic news. Professor Johnson is come back. When his wife read his letter, which announced his speedy return, she jumped for joy, and I jumped too in sympathy, and from the pleasure which I felt in again seeing one of those happy marriage connections which it is my delight to witness, and so many of which I have already seen in the New World. The expected husband came the next day, a strong, kind-hearted, excellent, and good-tempered man, who adds considerably by his presence to the richness and well-being of home, even as far as I am concerned, inasmuch as he reads aloud to me in the afternoons and any evenings when I am disengaged, or when the weather—which has now been wet for a couple of days—prevents my going out. In this way he has read to me Governor Seward's excellent Biography of the late President Adams, which has struck me particularly from the heroic character of the noble statesman in his struggle against slavery. A great statesman in this country must be, at the same time a sage and a hero, if he is to be adequate to his post.

I spend most of my forenoons at the Capitol and