in Spain. I never ride horseback now at home; but in Spain, when I
think of it, I bound over all the fences in the country, barebacked
upon the wildest horses. Sermons I am apt to find a little soporific
in this country; but in Spain I should listen as reverently as ever,
for proprietors must set a good example on their estates.

Plays are insufferable to me here--Prue and I never go. Prue, indeed,
is not quite sure it is moral; but the theatres in my Spanish castles
are of a prodigious splendor, and when I think of going there, Prue
sits in a front box with me--a kind of royal box--the good woman,
attired in such wise as I have never seen her here, while I wear my
white waistcoat, which in Spain has no appearance of mending, but
dazzles with immortal newness, and is a miraculous fit.

Yes, and in those castles in Spain, Prue is not the placid,
breeches-patching helpmate, with whom you are acquainted, but her face
has a bloom which we both remember, and her movement a grace which my
Spanish swans emulate, and her voice a music sweeter than those that
orchestras discourse. She is always there what she seemed to me when
I fell in love with her, many and many years ago. The neighbors
called her then a nice, capable girl; and certainly she did knit and
darn with a zeal and success to which my feet and my legs have
testified for nearly half a century. But she could spin a finer web
than ever came from cotton, and in its subtle meshes my heart was
entangled, and there has reposed softly and happily ever since. The
neighbors declared she could make pudding and cake better than any
girl of her age; but stale bread from Prue's hand was ambrosia to my
palate.

"She who makes every thing well, even to making neighbors speak well