Whether it be the fact that a mysterious being of another sex has
retired to rest behind the same curtains, or whether it be the swing
of the train, which rushes through the air with very much the same
movement as the tail of a kite, the situation is, at any rate, so
anomalous that I am unable to sleep. A ventilator is open just over
my head, and a lively draught, mingled with a drizzle of cinders,
pours in through this ingenious orifice. (I will describe to you
its form on my return.) If I had occupied the lower berth I should
have had a whole window to myself, and by drawing back the blind (a
safe proceeding at the dead of night), I should have been able, by
the light of an extraordinary brilliant moon, to see a little better
what I write. The question occurs to me, however,--Would the lady
below me in that case have ascended to the upper berth? (You know
my old taste for contingent inquiries.) I incline to think (from
what I have seen) that she would simply have requested me to
evacuate my own couch. (The ladies in this country ask for anything
they want.) In this case, I suppose, I should have had an extensive
view of the country, which, from what I saw of it before I turned in
(while the lady beneath me was going to bed), offered a rather
ragged expanse, dotted with little white wooden houses, which looked
in the moonshine like pasteboard boxes. I have been unable to
ascertain as precisely as I should wish by whom these modest
residences are occupied; for they are too small to be the homes of
country gentlemen, there is no peasantry here, and (in New England,
for all the corn comes from the far West) there are no yeomen nor
farmers. The information that one receives in this country is apt
to be rather conflicting, but I am determined to sift the mystery to
the bottom. I have already noted down a multitude of facts bearing
upon the points that interest me most--the operation of the school-
boards, the co-education of the sexes, the elevation of the tone of