ry angel who gave the beverage to Mahomet to
restore that individual's decayed moisture.

Ned himself waited, dressed in a brand-new flannel shirt and calico
ditto, his hair--he is a light mulatto--frizzled to the most intense
degree of corkscrewity, and a benign and self-satisfied smile
irradiating his face, such as _should_ illumine the features of a great
artist when he knows that he has achieved something, the memory of
which the world will not willingly let die. In truth, he needed but
white kid gloves to have been worthy of standing behind the chair of
Count d'Orsay himself. So grand was his air, so ceremonious his every
motion, that we forgot we were living in the heart of the Sierra
Nevada; forgot that our home was a log cabin of mere primitive
rudeness; forgot that we were sitting at a rough pine table covered
with a ragged piece of four-cent cotton cloth, eating soup with iron
spoons!

I wish, my funny little Molly, that you could have been here
clairvoyantly. It was one of those scenes, just touched with that fine
and almost imperceptible _perfume_ of the ludicrous, in which you
especially delight. There are a thousand minute shreds of the absurd
which my duller sense overlooks, but which never can hope to escape
your mirth-loving vision.

Ned really plays beautifully on the violin. There is a white man, by
the name of "Chock," who generally accompanies him. Of course, true
daughter of Eve that you are, you will wish to know "right off" what
Chock's _other_ name is. Young woman, I am ashamed of you! Who ever
asks for the _other_ name of Alexander, of Hannibal, of Homer? Suffice
it that he is Chock by himself,--Chock, and assistant violinist to
Paganini Vattal Ned.

Ned and one of his musical cronies--a white man--gave me a serenade the
other evening. As it was quite cold, F. made them come inside the
cabin. It was the richest thing possible, to see the patronizing and
yet serene manner with which Ned directed his companion what marches,
preludes, etc., to play for the amusement of that profound culinary and
musical critic, Dame Shirley.

It must be confessed that Ned's love of the beautiful is not quite so
correct as his taste in cooking and violin-playing. This morning a
gentle knock at my door was followed by that polite person, bearing in
triumph a small waiter, purloined from the Humboldt, on which stood in
state, festooned with tumblers, a gaudy pitcher, which would have
thrown Tearsoul and Lelie