In Cleveland, where I gave a series of talks, President Cutler, of Adelbert University, rose at the close of the last lecture and, looking genially towards me, made this acknowledgment: "I am free to confess that I have often been charmed by a woman, and occasionally instructed, but never before have I been charmed and instructed by the same woman."

Cleveland showed even then the spirit of the Cleveland of today, which is putting that city in the very first rank of the cities not only of the United States but of the world in civic improvement and municipal progress, morally and physically. Each night of my lectures I was entertained at a different house while there, and as a trifle to show their being in advance of other cities, I noticed that the ladies wore wigs to suit their costumes. That only became the fashion here last winter, but I saw no ultra colours such as we saw last year, green and pink and blue, but only those that suited their style and their costume.

At Chicago I was the guest of Mrs. H.O. Stone, who gave me a dinner and an afternoon reception, where I met many members of various clubs, and the youngest grandmothers I had ever seen. At a lunch given for me by Mrs. Locke, wife of Rev. Clinton B. Locke, I met Mrs. Potter Palmer, Mrs. Wayne MacVeagh, and Mrs. Williams, wife of General Williams, and formerly the wife of Stephen Douglas. Mrs. Locke was the best raconteur of any woman I have ever heard. Dartmouth men drove me to all the show places of that wonderful city. Lectured in Rev. Dr. Little's church parlors. He was not only a New Hampshire man, but born in Boscawen, New Hampshire, where my grandfather lived, and where my mother lived until her marriage.

It is pleasant to record that I was carried along on my lecture tour, sometimes by invitation of a Dartmouth man, again by college girls who had graduated at Smith College; then at Peoria, Illinois; welcomed there by a dear friend from Brooklyn, New York, wife of a business man of that city. I knew of Peoria only as a great place for the manufacture of whisky, and for its cast-iron stoves, but found it a city, magnificently situated on a series of bold bluffs. And when I reached my friend's house, a class of ladies, who had been easily chatting in German, wanted to stay and ask me a few questions. These showed deep thought, wide reading, and finely disciplined minds. Only one reading there in the Congregational Church, where there was such a fearful lack of ventilation that I turned from my manuscript and quoted a bit from the "Apele for Are to the Sextant of the Old Brick Meetinouse by A. Gasper," which proved effectual.

I give this impressive exhortation entire as it should be more generally known.

A APELE FOR ARE TO THE SEXTANT

BY ARABELLA WILSON

O Sextant of the meetinouse which sweeps
And dusts, or is supposed to! and makes fiers,
And lites the gas, and sumtimes leaves a screw loose,
In which case it smells orful—wus than lampile;
And wrings the Bel and toles it, and sweeps paths;
And for these servaces gits $100 per annum;
Wich them that thinks deer let 'em try it;
Gittin up before starlite in all wethers, and
Kindlin fiers when the wether is as cold
As zero, and like as not green wood for kindlins,
(I wouldn't be hierd to do it for no sum;)
But o Sextant there are one kermodity
Wuth more than gold which don't cost nuthin;
Wuth more than anything except the Sole of man!
I mean pewer Are, Sextant, I mean pewer Are!
O it is plenty out o dores, so plenty it doant no
What on airth to do with itself, but flize about
Scatterin leaves and bloin off men's hats;
In short its jest as free as Are out dores;
But O Sextant! in our church its scarce as piety,
Scarce as bankbills when ajunts beg for mishuns,
Which sum say is purty often, taint nuthin to me,
What I give aint nuthing to nobody; but O Sextant!
You shet 500 men women and children
Speshily the latter, up in a tite place,
Sum has bad breths, none of em aint too sweet,
Sum is fevery, sum is scroflus, sum has bad teeth
And sum haint none, and sum aint over clean;
But evry one of em brethes in and out and in
Say 50 times a minnet, or 1 million and a half breths an hour;
Now how long will a church full of are last at that rate?
I ask you; say fifteen minnets, and then what's to be did?
Why then they must brethe it all over agin,
And then agin and so on, till each has took it down
At least ten times and let it up agin, and what's more,
The same individible doant have the privilege
Of brethin his own are and no one else,
Each one must take wotever comes to him.
O Sextant! doant you know our lungs is belluses
To bio the fier of life and keep it from
Going out: and how can bellusses blo without wind?
And aint wind are? I put it to your konshens,
Are is the same to us as milk to babies,
Or water is to fish, or pendlums to clox,
Or roots and airbs unto an Injun doctor,
Or little pills unto an omepath.
Or Boze to girls. Are is for us to brethe.
What signifize who preaches ef I can't brethe?
What's Pol? What's Pollus to sinners who are ded?
Ded for want of breth! Why Sextant when we dye
Its only coz we cant brethe no more—that's all.
And now O Sextant! let me beg of you
To let a little are into our cherch
(Pewer are is sertin proper for the pews);
And dew it week days and on Sundys tew—
It aint much trobble—only make a hoal,
And then the are will come in of itself
(It loves to come in where it can git warm).
And O how it will rouze the people up
And sperrit up the preacher, and stop garps
And yorns and fijits as effectool
As wind on the dry boans the Profit tels
Of.

I went as far as Omaha, and then was asked if I were not going West. The reason for this charming reception was that it was a novelty then to hear a young woman talk in a lively way on striking themes which had been most carefully prepared, and a light touch added, with frequent glints of humour. Byron declared that easy writing was very hard reading. I reversed that method, always working hard over each lecture. For instance, I spent two months in preparing "Bachelor Authors," cramming and condensing, and passing quickly over dangerous ground. With my vocal training I could easily be heard by an audience of five hundred.

A friend was eager to go to Alaska by Seattle; then, after our return, visit Yellowstone Park and San Francisco. She urged me so eloquently to accompany her, that I left my home in Metcalf, Massachusetts, taking great risks in many ways, but wonderful to relate, nothing disastrous occurred.