fortune, the cost of her housekeeping by the week, and a variety of
particular matters that are not usually disclosed except to
friends. At one station, she shook up her children to look at a
man on the platform and say if he were not like Mr. Z.; while to me
she explained how she had been keeping company with this Mr. Z.,
how far matters had proceeded, and how it was because of his
desistance that she was now travelling to the West. Then, when I
was thus put in possession of the facts, she asked my judgment on
that type of manly beauty. I admired it to her heart's content.
She was not, I think, remarkably veracious in talk, but broidered
as fancy prompted, and built castles in the air out of her past;
yet she had that sort of candour, to keep me, in spite of all these
confidences, steadily aware of her aversion. Her parting words
were ingeniously honest. "I am sure," said she, "we all OUGHT to
be very much obliged to you." I cannot pretend that she put me at
my ease; but I had a certain respect for such a genuine dislike. A
poor nature would have slipped, in the course of these
familiarities, into a sort of worthless toleration for me.

We reached Chicago in the evening. I was turned out of the cars,
bundled into an omnibus, and driven off through the streets to the
station of a different railroad. Chicago seemed a great and gloomy
city. I remember having subscribed, let us say sixpence, towards
its restoration at the period of the fire; and now when I beheld
street after street of ponderous houses and crowds of comfortable
burghers, I thought it would be a graceful act for the corporation
to refund that sixpence, or, at the least, to entertain me to a
cheerful dinner. But there was no word of restitution. I was that
city's benefactor, yet I was received in a third-class waiting-
room, and the best dinner I could get was a dish of ham and eggs at