city and its people.


BOSTON, Wednesday.

July 1882.
DEAR FAMILY:--


I left Newport last night or rather this morning. I stopped
at Beverly and called on Dr. Holmes. He talked a great deal
about mama and about a great many other things equally lovely
in a very easy, charming way. All I had to do was to listen
and I was only too willing to do that. We got along splendidly.
He asked me to stay to dinner but I refused with
thanks, as I had only come to pay my respects and put off to
Dr. Bartol's. Dr. Holmes accompanied me to the depot and saw
me safely off. Of all the lovely men I ever saw Dr. Bartol is
the one. He lives in a great, many roomed with as many
gables, house. Elizabethan, of course, with immense
fireplaces, brass and dark woods, etchings and engravings,
with the sea and rocks immediately under the window and the
ocean stretching out for miles, lighthouses and more Elizabethan
houses half hid on the bank, and ships and small boats
pushing by within a hundred rods of the windows. I stayed to
dinner there and we had a very jolly time. There were two
other young men and another maiden besides Miss Bartol. They
talked principally about the stage; that is, the Boston Stock
Company, which is their sole thought and knowledge of the
drama. The Dr. would strike off now and then to