We got here three days ago, and we have made a visit to the Isle of Wight. We went straight down to the southern coast, and stopped all night at the little town of Bonchurch. It was very lovely down there with roses and other flowers blooming out-of-doors as if it was summer, although it is now getting so cold everywhere else. But what pleased me most was to stand at the top of a little hill, and look out over the waters of the English Channel, and feel that not far out of eyeshot was the beautiful land of France with its lower part actually touching Italy.
You know, madam, that when we was here before, we was in France, and a happy woman was I to be there, although so much younger than now I couldn't properly enjoy it; but even then France was only part of the road to Italy, which, alas, we never got to. Some day, however, I shall float in a gondola and walk amid the ruins of ancient Rome, and if Jone is too sick of travel to go with me, it may be necessary for Corinne to see the world, and I shall take her.
Now I must finish this letter and bid good-by to beautiful Britain, which has made us happy and treated us well in spite of some comparisons in which we was expected to be on the wrong side, but which hurt nobody, and which I don't want even to think of at such a moment as this.
Letter Number Twenty-seven
NEW YORK
I send you this, madam, to let you know that we arrived here safely yesterday afternoon, and that we are going to-day to Jone's mother's farm where Corinne is.
I liked sailing from Southampton because when I start to go to a place I like to go, and when we went home before and had to begin by going all the way up to Liverpool by land, and then coming all the way back again by water, and after a couple of days of this to stop at Queenstown and begin the real voyage from there, I did not like it, although it was a good deal of fun seeing the bumboat women come aboard at Queenstown and telescope themselves into each other as they hurried up the ladder to get on deck and sell us things.
We had a very good voyage, with about enough rolling to make the dining saloon look like some of the churches we've seen abroad on weekdays where there was services regular, but mighty small congregations.