only just got the appointment and lately taken up their residence
at the Navy Yard, they could do no entertaining. Anyhow, we have
had a very pleasant insight into the home life of America, which
differs in small ways a good deal from ours, and in character,
habits, and everything there is a widish gulf between the two
races.

Our train here was a splendid one, stopping only about sixteen
times, and doing the nine hundred miles in thirty-six hours. We
had a section in the Pullman, which makes a double seat facing
each other by day, and at night the two seats are converted into a
bed, with the second bed pulled down from the roof, on which
mattresses, blankets, and sheets are all arranged with a
projecting board at the head and foot, and a curtain in front, so
that one is quite private, and we slept like tops. We had also a
dining-car on, where every luxury of the season, to strawberries
and cream, were served by the blackest of niggers in the whitest
of garments, for the sum of a dollar a head per meal.

Only fancy our delight, after leaving Harrisburgh about 3 o'clock
in the afternoon, to find friends in the train, people from an
adjoining county in England who knew all our friends, and with
whom we had much in common. I need hardly tell you that we did
"chin" it until our ways parted at this station, they going to the
Grand Pacific, we to the Treemont which had been recommended to us
as being a quieter hotel for ladies alone.

Men make these hotels their club, where they smoke and lounge all
day; but as there is a second door for ladies, one is not bothered
in any way unless you want to go to the office for information.