Page:The Homes of the New World- Vol. II.djvu/368

Rh Besides he must be continually prepared to meet with those unprincipled fortune-hunters, who hasten from Europe and the Eastern States (the prodigal sons of those countries), into the West to find there a freer scope for their savage passions.

To-morrow, or the day after, I steer my course to Cincinnati; whence I shall write to you again.

&emsp; Only a kiss in spirit and a few lines to-day, because I have so many irons in the fire that I am, as it were, a little bewildered in my head, but that is with sweet wine!

I have been located since last Tuesday in the most agreeable and the most kind of homes, where those most agreeable of human beings and married people, Mr. and Mrs. S., middle-aged, that is to say, about fifty, wealthy and without children, find their happiness in gathering around them friends and relations, and in making them happy. I am occupying one of the many guest-chambers of their handsome and spacious house, and am treated with as much kindness as if I were a member of the family. A pale, gentle, and grave young clergyman (a mourning widower), and two unmarried ladies, relations of my entertainers, compose the family. My host, a giant in stature, and his little wife, have a good deal of humour, so that there is no lack of savoury salt for the every-day meal.

A word now about the journey hither from St. Louis. It was made in six days, by the Asia, safely and quietly, spite of the uneasy companionship of four-and-twenty little children, from ten years to a few months old. One thought oneself well off if only a third of the number were not crying at once. There were also some passengers of the second or third sort, ladies who smoked their pipes and blew their noses with their