That
blue ribbon winding away to the sunset, was it not the sinuous Charles?
I looked east: Boston harbour stretched before me with its headlands,
not one of its green islets missing.

"If you had told me," I said, profoundly awed, "that a thousand years
instead of a hundred had elapsed since I last looked on this city, I
should now believe you."

"Only a century has passed," he answered; "but many a millennium in the
world's history has seen changes less extraordinary."

_II.--How the Great Change Came About_

After Dr. Leete had responded to numerous questions on my part, he asked
in what point the contrast between the new and the old city struck me
most forcibly.

"To speak of small things before great," I replied, "I really think
that the complete absence of chimneys and their smoke is the detail that
first impressed me."

"Ah!" ejaculated my companion. "I had forgotten the chimneys, it is so
long since they went out of use. It is nearly a century since the crude
method of combustion, on which you depended for heat, became obsolete."

"In general," I said, "what impresses me most about the city is the
material prosperity on the part of the people which its magnificence
implies."

"I would give a great deal for just one glimpse of the Boston of your
day," replied Dr. Leete. "No doubt the cities of that period were rather
shabby affairs. If you had the taste to make them splendid, which I
would not be so rude as to question, the general poverty resulting from
your extraordinary industrial system would not have given you the means.
Moreover, the excessive individualism was inconsistent with much public
spirit. Nowadays, there is no destination of the surplus wealth so
popular as the adornment of the city, which all enjoy in equal degree.
It is growing dark," he added. "Let us descend into the house; I want to
introduce my wife and daughter to you."

The apartment in which we found the ladies, as well as the entire
interior of the house, was filled with a mellow light, which I knew must
be artificial, although I could not discover the source from which it
was diffused. Mrs. Leete was an exceptionally fine-looking and
well-preserved woman, while her daughter, in the first blush of
womanhood, was the most beautiful girl I had ever seen. In this lovely
creature feminine softness and delicacy were deliciously combined with
an appearance of health and abounding physical vitality too often
lacking in the maidens