rt sank. I felt tears crowding up to my eyes. Death in one
place--all this gorgeous confusion and wild gayety here. A lonely widow,
weeping bitter tears; all these gay fluttering young people reckless and
happy, in spite of it.

I arose, and looked around me. No one seemed to feel this man's death.
Never in my whole life had I been in such a whirlpool of gayety. There
was not a sad or thoughtful face in the crowd. Yet many of the persons
there had known the man who lay dead in the city. I had never heard of
him till then, but no smiles came to my lips after that mournful
knowledge reached me. In the midst of all this hilarious gayety I felt
the shadow of human suffering creeping over me, and I rode home from the
race-park in sad silence.

LXVIII.

OFF AGAIN.

Dear sisters:--New York City is full of epidemical contagions.
Horse-racing is one of them. Every spring and fall it rages fearfully,
especially among the female women who wait for the races--dress up for
the races, and come out with splendiferous spontaneosity, whenever the
fast horses are ready to run.

I have been up to see the creatures rush once, and sent you my report,
which, owing to verdancy of mind caught from the Green Mountains, was
only skim milk to which I now pour in cream with a liberal hand. To own
the truth, it takes more than one visit before a regular New England
young lady can understand the inns and outs of a horse-race.

Now, I dare say you think it a sort of agricultural fair for
animals--for the horsey kind meant to show off their beauty, try their
speed, and encourage farmers to go in for improvement.

Exactly, and a good deal more so. Why, sisters, it's gambling--just
gambling, open handed and above board, in which the upper-crust female
women of New York take a hand with the men, and glory in it. But I mean
to tell you all about it in the regular way, and shall do it as I go
along.

You never saw such a crowd of carriages, wagons, buggies, and queer
horse machines as crowded along the road when we got within three or
four miles of the race-course. When we come to the long bridge that runs
across the Harlem River, there were two lines of carriages stretching
before and behind us, just as far as we could see, horses that tossed
their heads and champed their bits, and shone like satin under harnesses
mounted with gold and silver, with little looking-glasses flying in and
out over their heads, and hoofs that struck the groun