st affectionate and hearty Friend.

P.S.--Don't let Madame Fechter, or Marie, or Paul forget me!

[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]

SYRACUSE, _Sunday, March 8th, 1868._

As we shall probably be busy all day to-morrow, I write this to-day,
though it will not leave New York until Wednesday. This is a very grim
place in a heavy thaw, and a most depressing one. The hotel also is
surprisingly bad, quite a triumph in that way. We stood out for an hour
in the melting snow, and came in again, having to change completely.
Then we sat down by the stove (no fireplace), and there we are now. We
were so afraid to go to bed last night, the rooms were so close and
sour, that we played whist, double dummy, till we couldn't bear each
other any longer. We had an old buffalo for supper, and an old pig for
breakfast, and we are going to have I don't know what for dinner at six.
In the public rooms downstairs, a number of men (speechless) are sitting
in rocking-chairs, with their feet against the window-frames, staring
out at window and spitting dolefully at intervals. Scott is in tears,
and George the gasman is suborning people to go and clean the hall,
which is a marvel of dirt. And yet we have taken considerably over three
hundred pounds for to-morrow night!

We were at Albany the night before last and yesterday morning; a very
pretty town, where I am to read on the 18th and 19th. This day week we
hope to wash out this establishment with the Falls of Niagara. And there
is my news, except that your _last letters_ to me in America must be
posted by the Cunard steamer, which will sail from Liverpool on
_Saturday, the 4th of April_. These I shall be safe to get before
embarking.

I send a note to Katie (addressed to Mamie) by this mail. I wrote to
Harry some weeks ago, stating to him on what principles he must act in
remodelling the cricket club, if he would secure success.

[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]

_Monday Morning, 9th._

Nothing new. Weather cloudy, and town more dismal than yesterday. It
froze again last night, and thaws again this morning. Somebody sent me
an Australian newspaper this morning--some citizen of Syracuse I
mean--because of a paragraph in it describing the taking of two
freebooters, at which taking Alfred was present. Though I do not make
out that he had anything in the world to do with it, except having his
name pressed into the servi