certain timid youths,
who, after one or two attacks, gave up the battle in despair.

I thought that I had had some experience in bad grammar since I came to
California, but these good people were the first that I had ever heard
use right royal _we_ instead of _us_. Do not imagine that all, or even
the larger part, of the company were of this description. There were
many intelligent and well-bred women, whose acquaintance I made with
extreme pleasure.

After reading the description of the inconveniences and discomforts
which we suffered in the American Valley,--and I can assure you that I
have not at all exaggerated them,--you may imagine my joy when two of
our friends arrived from Indian Bar for the purpose of accompanying us
home. We took two days for our return, and thus I was not at all
fatigued. The weather was beautiful, our friends amusing, and F. well
and happy. We stopped at night at a rancho where they had a tame frog.
You cannot think how comic it looked hopping about the bar, quite as
much at home as a tame squirrel would have been. I had a bed made up
for me at this place, on one end of a long dining-table. It was very
comfortable, with the trifling drawback that I had to rise earlier than
I wished, in order that what had been a bed at night might become a
table by day.

We stopped at the top of the hill and set fire to some fir-trees. Oh,
how splendidly they looked, with the flames leaping and curling amid
the dark green foliage like a golden snake fiercely beautiful. The
shriek which the fire gave as it sprang upon its verdant prey made me
think of the hiss of some furious reptile about to wrap in its burning
folds its helpless victim.

With what perfect delight did I re-enter my beloved log cabin. One of
our good neighbors had swept and put it in order before my arrival, and
everything was as clean and neat as possible. How grateful to my feet
felt the thick warm carpet; how perfect appeared the floor, which I had
once reviled (I begged its pardon on the spot) because it was not
exactly even; how cozy the old faded-calico couch; how thoroughly
comfortable the four chairs (two of them had been thoroughly rebottomed
with brown sail-cloth, tastefully put on, with a border of
carpet-tacks); how truly elegant the closet-case toilet-table, with the
doll's looking-glass hanging above, which showed my face (the first
time that I had seen it since I left home) some six shades darker than
usual; how convenient