hionable street, devoted
exclusively to elegant residences. Upon inquiring for Mr. Greeley, my
consternation was great to learn that although he had looked at rooms
in that house, he had not engaged them, and the landlady had no idea of
his address. I was almost as timid about cabs as I had been about the
steamboat; for I had heard stories of young girls being robbed and
murdered by New York cab-drivers, and here I was, late at night, in all
the whirl and excitement of the metropolis, driving I knew not where,
and entirely at the mercy of an assassin. However, my modest trunk did
not look very inviting, I suppose, for I reached _The New Yorker_
office--the only other address I knew in the city--without further
adventure, where I ascertained that brother was now living at 124
Greenwich Street--a most beautiful situation close by the Battery--then
the fashionable promenade of New York. He had written to tell me of
his change of residence, but the letter failed to reach me.

"It was half-past eleven when I finally reached my home. The large
parlor was ablaze with lights, and crowded with people; for it was
Friday, the night that _The New Yorker_ went to press, and brother's
reception evening. I was trembling with fatigue and excitement, and
very faint, for I had not eaten since early in the morning; but all
these emotions vanished when I was introduced to my new sister. I had
seen no pictures of her, and knew her only through brother's
description, and a few letters she had written me since her marriage,
and I was quite unprepared for the exquisite, fairy-like creature I now
beheld. A slight, girlish figure, rather _petite_ in stature, dressed
in clouds of white muslin, cut low, and her neck and shoulders covered
by massive dark curls, from which gleamed out an Oriental-looking
_coiffure_, composed of strands of large gold and pearl beads. Her
eyes were large, dark, and pensive, and her rich brunette complexion
was heightened by a flush, not brilliant like Gabrielle's, but delicate
as a rose-leaf. She appeared to me like a being from another world."

To continue mamma's reminiscences of uncle's first year of married life:

"I found my sister-in-law's tastes," she said, "quite different from
those of the majority of young ladies. In literature her preference
was for the solid and philosophic, rather than the romantic class of
reading; indeed, I may say that she never read, she _studied_; going
over a paragraph