"As a sweet lute that lingers
In silence alone;
Unswept by light fingers.
Scarce murmurs a tone;
My own heart resembles,
This lute, light and free,
'Til o'er its chord trembles
Sweet memories of thee."
The garden still remained as arranged by his taste and dictation, and at one corner of the house the magnolia tree, planted by his own hand, still bloomed in fragrant beauty.
In the yard was the old well, with "its moss-covered, iron-bound bucket," and at the door the gray-haired negro, the inevitable servant of "Massa Washington," who will doubtless, like a wandering Jew, out live all time, and for centuries to come remain an attaché of our country's father.
Several gentlemen present evinced and expressed great surprise that a blind woman should go to see Mount Vernon, yet I very much doubt if any eyes really saw more than my own. When we reached the boat, each gentleman carried in his hand a cane cut from the woods of Mount Vernon, and one and all returned to Washington with the consciousness of having spent a pleasant and profitable day.
We soon left for Lynchburg, Virginia, after which we visited the towns en route to Knoxville, Tennessee. At the latter place we had a very enjoyable visit to the home of Parson Brownlow. He was absent in attendance upon the Legislature, but his daughter gracefully and cordially dispensed the hospitalities of their home, and did everything within the bounds of her warm, sympathetic intelligence to heighten the pleasure and interest of our visit.
Back again to Chicago, we were welcomed by Mr. Arms, whom we found engaged in erecting machinery in the Gowan Marble Works, the largest of the kind in the North-west. Resting in the sweet haven of home, we passed the winter in this sanctum.
CHAPTER XXV.
"I love not man the less, but nature more,
From these our interviews, in which I steal
From all I may be, or have been before,
To mingle with the universe, and feel
What I can ne'er express, yet cannot all conceal."
Renewed and refreshed from our long winter rest, with the migration of the birds we winged our way westward, alighting in many a lovely locality in the flourishing State of Iowa, whose soft undulations of prairies were now swelling in billows of gorgeous green, and touched with the varied tints of flowery bloom.