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Pages from an Old Volume of Life; a collection of essays, 1857-1881 by Oliver Wendell Holmes
page 44 of 156 (28%)
I passed through Frederick, and we trundled along over the track toward
Baltimore.

It was a disappointment, on reaching the Eutaw House, where I had ordered
all communications to be addressed, to find no telegraphic message from
Philadelphia or Boston, stating that Captain H. had arrived at the former
place, "wound doing well in good spirits expects to leave soon for
Boston." After all, it was no great matter; the Captain was, no doubt,
snugly lodged before this in the house called Beautiful, at * * * *
Walnut Street, where that "grave and beautiful damsel named Discretion"
had already welcomed him, smiling, though "the water stood in her eyes,"
and had "called out Prudence, Piety, and Charity, who, after a little
more discourse with him, had him into the family."

The friends I had met at the Eutaw House had all gone but one, the lady
of an officer from Boston, who was most amiable and agreeable, and whose
benevolence, as I afterwards learned, soon reached the invalids I had
left suffering at Frederick. General Wool still walked the corridors,
inexpansive, with Fort McHenry on his shoulders, and Baltimore in his
breeches-pocket, and his courteous aid again pressed upon me his kind
offices. About the doors of the hotel the news-boys cried the papers in
plaintive, wailing tones, as different from the sharp accents of their
Boston counterparts as a sigh from the southwest is from a northeastern
breeze. To understand what they said was, of course, impossible to any
but an educated ear, and if I made out "Starr" and "Clipp'rr," it was
because I knew beforehand what must be the burden of their advertising
coranach.

I set out for Philadelphia on the morrow, Tuesday the twenty-third, there
beyond question to meet my Captain, once more united to his brave wounded
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