"Our blessed land of liberty," she says, "proud, beautiful, glorious America!" Truly, the war is over; and as she steams ever farther away from America, its states seem to melt magically into one another, and North and South blend, and become an indissoluble Union.
One day, less stormy than the rest, the young husband crept from his berth, hoping to find relief from days of nausea by greeting the keen wind. He went upon deck, and was presently engaged in conversation with a stranger.
He found that his companion was an Englishman who, for some time, had been in business in Chicago. He was much interested in the young man's missionary plans; the shrewd merchant read aright the intense zeal which shone upon the Kentuckian's face, and which trembled in his voice. "I have a brother living in London," he said; "when you go there, you must go to his house. I am on my way to visit him now, and I'll meet you there."
Oliver Carr had no intention of going to test the hospitality of a stranger, and, when he gave Mr. Murby his card, he supposed the incident closed. On the eighth day out the ship touched at Queenstown. Mr. and Mrs. Carr—we must no longer call them "Oliver" and "Mattie,"—took a ride on a Jaunting Car—in which one sits sidewise, while one's driver sparkles with Irish wit. A woman came to sell them fruit, and offered to toss pennies for the difference between what she wanted and they were willing to give. It was a jolly crowd that surrounded them, and every Irishman had a funny tale to tell the travelers. Before the ground ceased its semblance of rocking to and fro, they were again on board.
When they landed in Liverpool, everything seemed new and strange. They "found cabs instead of busses;" but doubtless the difference was most marked because they found Englishmen instead of Americans. At the hotel they were visited by G. Y. Tickle and other members of the church, and in the afternoon they crossed to Berkinhead to visit other Christians. On April 29th the train pulled out at 9 a. m. for London. Mrs. Carr took a few notes, as she looked upon Mrs. Browning's world—the world of "Aurora Leigh."
"Corn—undulating lands—rural improvements—daisies and primroses. Hedges—winding roads, and footpaths. Drains in the lowlands. Winding brooks and brooklets, through daisied meadows. Fir-clad hills."
Out of this primrose England, the car glides into the smoke and fog of London. London at last—how far away from the Lancaster and Stanford of one's girlhood! How far, indeed, even from the dreams of one's girlhood, this city that rises up, solidly real before the young woman's eyes! It seems pulsing with the thoughts of those who represent, to her mind, the highest peaks of literature; Dickens and Thackeray, George Eliot and Robert Browning, Bulwer Lytton and Macaulay and Carlyle and De Quincy—all are living; one might meet them any moment on Oxford or Regent streets, where "I took a promenade," she says; "I find they surpass Broadway in all but dress."
At 2:30, they are installed at the hotel; at three, they take luncheon and at four they have a visitor. It is the brother of the Chicago merchant. The merchant has written about the missionaries, and asked that they be looked up—doubtless, suspecting that the overtures must come from the English side. So this brother has come, a Mr. Murby of some distinction; for does he not edit the music department of the Cornhill Magazine?
He insists on the young bridal pair going to his own home; for O. A. Carr, in honor of the honeymoon, has selected a hotel of much pretention. "You must go with me," says Mr. Murby. "It is too expensive, staying at a hotel like this; you shall make your home in my house. My wife will take no refusal. She will entertain you as well as she can—we have one baby in the cradle, and another three years old. I've brought the wagon for the trunks."