[Illustration: "This might be a Dorkminster"]
We got here three days ago, and we have made a visit to the Isle of
Wight. We went straight down to the southern coast, and stopped all
night at the little town of Bonchurch. It was very lovely down there
with roses and other flowers blooming out-of-doors as if it was summer,
although it is now getting so cold everywhere else. But what pleased me
most was to stand at the top of a little hill, and look out over the
waters of the English Channel, and feel that not far out of eyeshot was
the beautiful land of France with its lower part actually touching
Italy.
You know, madam, that when we was here before, we was in France, and a
happy woman was I to be there, although so much younger than now I
couldn't properly enjoy it; but even then France was only part of the
road to Italy, which, alas, we never got to. Some day, however, I shall
float in a gondola and walk amid the ruins of ancient Rome, and if Jone
is too sick of travel to go with me, it may be necessary for Corinne to
see the world, and I shall take her.
Now I must finish this letter and bid good-by to beautiful Britain,
which has made us happy and treated us well in spite of some
comparisons in which we was expected to be on the wrong side, but which
hurt nobody, and which I don't want even to think of at such a moment
as this.
Letter Number Twenty-seven
NEW YORK
I send you this, madam, to let you know that we arrived here safely
yesterday afternoon, and that we are going to-day to Jone's mother's
farm where Corinne is.
I liked sailing from Southampton because when I start to go to a place
I like to go, and when we went home before and had to begin by going
all the way up to Liverpool by land, and then coming all the way back
again by water, and after a couple of days of this to stop at
Queenstown and begin the real voyage from there, I did not like it,
although it was a good deal of fun seeing the bumboat women come aboard
at Queenstown and telescope themselves into each other as they hurried
up the ladder to get on deck and sell us things.
We had a very good voyage, with about enough rolling to make the dining
saloon look like some of the churches we've seen abroad on weekdays
where there was services regular, but mighty small congregations.
When we got in sight of my native shore, England, Scotland, and even
the longed-for Italy, with her palaces and gondolas, faded from my
mind, and my every fibre tingled with pride and patriotism.
