Charles and Josephine were fixed on the doorstep, following me with
their regards, and I believed I saw a tear in the left eye of each.
What fidelity! I smiled in a sort of indulgent and baronial manner,
but I felt touched by their sensibility.

Come on! It is but a twenty-four hours' separation.

Go forth, then, as I remember saying long ago, without fear and with a
manly heart, to meet the dim and shadowy Future.

EDWARD STRAHAN.

* * * * *

FROM PHILADELPHIA TO BALTIMORE.

In 1832 a few adventurous men obtained a charter for a railroad from
Baltimore to Port Deposit: other charters were granted by Delaware
and Pennsylvania in succeeding years, and at last in 1838 all were
consolidated as the Philadelphia, Wilmington and Baltimore Railroad
Company, and became a through all-rail line, interrupted only by
the Susquehanna and some minor water-courses, under one management,
beginning at Philadelphia and ending at Baltimore. But the country was
too young and weak to make this a strong road, either in capital
or business. It struggled along with a heavy debt, poor road-bed,
imperfect rail (in some parts the old strap rail), few locomotives and
cars, and inconvenient dépôts, making but little progress up to
1851, when Mr. Samuel M. Felton was brought from Boston to assume the
presidency.