ned my back upon him to come once
more round by a journey of three or four hundred miles to the same region
I had left! No mysterious attraction warned me that the heart warm with
the same blood as mine was throbbing so near my own. I thought of that
lovely, tender passage where Gabriel glides unconsciously by Evangeline
upon the great river. Ah, me! if that railroad crash had been a few
hours earlier, we two should never have met again, after coming so close
to each other!

The source of my repeated disappointments was soon made clear enough. The
Captain had gone to Hagerstown, intending to take the cars at once for
Philadelphia, as his three friends actually did, and as I took it for
granted he certainly would. But as he walked languidly along, some
ladies saw him across the street, and seeing, were moved with pity, and
pitying, spoke such soft words that he was tempted to accept their
invitation and rest awhile beneath their hospitable roof. The mansion
was old, as the dwellings of gentlefolks should be; the ladies were some
of them young, and all were full of kindness; there were gentle cares,
and unasked luxuries, and pleasant talk, and music-sprinklings from the
piano, with a sweet voice to keep them company,--and all this after the
swamps of the Chickahominy, the mud and flies of Harrison's Landing, the
dragging marches, the desperate battles, the fretting wound, the jolting
ambulance, the log-house, and the rickety milk--cart! Thanks, uncounted
thanks to the angelic ladies whose charming attentions detained him from
Saturday to Thursday, to his great advantage and my infinite
bewilderment! As for his wound, how could it do otherwise than well
under such hands? The bullet had gone smoothly through, dodging
everything but a few nervous branches, which would come right in time and
leave him as well as ever.

At ten that evening we were in Philadelphia, the Captain at the house of
the friends so often referred to, and I the guest of Charley, my kind
companion. The Quaker element gives an irresistible attraction to these
benignant Philadelphia households. Many things reminded me that I was no
longer in the land of the Pilgrims. On the table were Kool Slaa and
Schmeer Kase, but the good grandmother who dispensed with such quiet,
simple grace these and more familiar delicacies was literally ignorant of
Baked Beans, and asked if it was the Lima bean which was employed in that
marvellous dish of animalized leg