t of a stranger. I could also earn more in
this way than I could by my needle. So I put Benny to a trade, and left
Ellen to remain in the house with my friend and go to school.

We sailed from New York, and arrived in Liverpool after a pleasant voyage
of twelve days. We proceeded directly to London, and took lodgings at the
Adelaide Hotel. The supper seemed to me less luxurious than those I had
seen in American hotels; but my situation was indescribably more pleasant.
For the first time in my life I was in a place where I was treated
according to my deportment, without reference to my complexion. I felt as
if a great millstone had been lifted from my breast. Ensconced in a
pleasant room, with my dear little charge, I laid my head on my pillow, for
the first time, with the delightful consciousness of pure, unadulterated
freedom.

As I had constant care of the child, I had little opportunity to see the
wonders of that great city; but I watched the tide of life that flowed
through the streets, and found it a strange contrast to the stagnation in
our Southern towns. Mr. Bruce took his little daughter to spend some days
with friends in Oxford Crescent, and of course it was necessary for me to
accompany her. I had heard much of the systematic method of English
education, and I was very desirous that my dear Mary should steer straight
in the midst of so much propriety. I closely observed her little playmates
and their nurses, being ready to take any lessons in the science of good
management. The children were more rosy than American children, but I did
not see that they differed materially in other respects. They were like all
children--sometimes docile and sometimes wayward.

We next went to Steventon, in Berkshire. It was a small town, said to be
the poorest in the county. I saw men working in the fields for six
shillings, and seven shillings, a week, and women for sixpence, and
sevenpence, a day, out of which they boarded themselves. Of course they
lived in the most primitive manner; it could not be otherwise, where a
woman's wages for an entire day were not sufficient to buy a pound of meat.
They paid very low rents, and their clothes were made of the cheapest
fabrics, though much better than could have been procured in the United
States for the same money. I had heard much about the oppression of the
poor in Europe. The people I saw around me were, many of them, among the
poorest poor. But when I visited them in their li