ese regions who has a
plausible claim to that dubious title. But, alas! I am not my own woman
now, and with tears of shame I acknowledge that _any_ letter from London
comes like an angel's whisper breathed to me through the air.

"I dare say you have been unreasonable enough to think that I ought to
have written to tell you of my arrival; and knowing that man is born to
vanity as the sparks fly upward, I have more than once intended to take
pen in hand and write; but there is something so sleepy in this island
atmosphere that my good resolution has hitherto been a stillborn babe
that has breathed but never cried!

"Know then that my journey hither was performed with due celerity and no
further disaster than befalls me when, as usual, I have _done_ those
things which I ought not to have done, and left _undone_ those things
which I ought to have done--the former in this instance having reference
to various bouts of crying--which drew forth the sympathy of a
compassionate female sharper in the train--and the latter to the catch of
my sachel, which enabled that obliging person to draw forth my
embroidered pocket-handkerchief in exchange.

"I was in good time for the steamboat at Liverpool, and it was crowded,
according to its wont, with the Lancashire lads and lasses, in whom
affection is as contagious as the mumps. Being in the dumps myself on
sailing out of the river, and thinking of the wild excitement with which
I had sailed into it, I think I should have found that I had not _done_
crying in both senses but for the interest of watching an amiable Bob
Brierley who, with his arm about the waist of the person sitting next to
him, kept looking round at the rest of the world from time to time with
the innocence of one whose left hand didn't know what his right hand was
doing.

"But we had hardly crossed the bar when the prince of the powers of the
air began to envy the happiness of these dear young goodies, and if you
had seen the weather for the next four hours you would have agreed that
the devil must have had a hand in it! Up came a wave over the after
quarter and down went the passengers below decks, staggering and
screaming like brewery rats, and then on we came like the Israelites out
of Egypt on eagles' wings! Having lost my own sea legs a little I thought
it prudent to go down too, with my doggie tucked under my arm, and
finding a berth in the ladies' cabin, I fell asleep and didn't awake
until we were in the cr