MY DEAR MOTHER: Really I hardly feel equal to a detailed description of our trip over the ocean. Why is it that I remember only the painful things about our journey? Surely there were pleasant people, cultivated men and graceful women, such as one always meets in these days of free interchange between different nations. But I have observed that some temperaments catch first and make most visible the shadows upon the landscape. Much as I love the hues and tints of the changeful waters, I seem to remember only the rolling ship, and between me and the thought of the blue skies and the splendid sunsets which I would have carried away as a treasured memory, comes some trifling but harassing recollection. So narrow and individual is the composing-stone upon which our impressions are made up. I assume, dear mother, that you remember our serious conversation that last night before my marriage, as, sitting upon my couch and looking into my sleepy eyes, you half chided me for that which you called—for want of a better term—indifference. Pardon me, ’tis a word with a sex. A woman may love, she may hate, she may dissemble, but, pose as she will, there is no profile in her passion. I do not deny I am going to school to my own heart. I am honestly endeavoring to follow your advice. I am learning to love. Let me say in the beginning it is a mistake to believe that men love deeply. If ever they do, the object of their passion is themselves. Is this a sound foundation to build domestic faith upon? However, as I have said, I shall try very earnestly to do my part. The baron told me this morning that as Americans were a nation of plebeians, I would naturally suffer many disabilities even as the Baroness Von Eulaw, to which I replied rather hotly that honor and courage required no purple swaddlings to hide their proportions, and that we Americans sprang full created from the brain of regenerate thought, whereupon his manly fist gathered muscle for a moment, then as speedily relaxed, and he only slammed the door of his dressing-room between us. Believe me, my dear mother, I was very sorry for the scene, and I have no excuse to offer save the gaping wound to my patriotism, which I find much more sensitive over here than at home. We have constant engagements, and I feel a little worn, though otherwise quite well. Can you pardon a letter wholly devoted to myself? and in return will you not tell me all about yourself, dear papa, and everybody you know? Always faithfully your own, ELLEN. _From Mrs. Perces Thornton to the Baroness Von Eulaw._ ROXBURY, Mass., April 2, 1893. MY DEAR DAUGHTER: I have your first letter written from Berlin, but how sad! That dreadful sea must have made you bilious. It has always just such an effect on your father; he sees the whole earth through smoked glasses.