British -- United States -- Fiction; Epistolary fiction; Married women -- Fiction; Voyages and travels -- Fiction
I was not half so impressed with the falls as I ought to have been.
They don't seem so high as in the pictures, and the terrible buildings
on one side distract one so it seems as if even the water can't be
natural, and must be just arranged by machinery. But it was fun going
under them, and those oilskin coats and caps are most becoming. You go
down in a lift and then walk along passages scooped out of the rock
until you are underneath the volume of water, which pours over in front
of you like a curtain. It was here Gaston suggested his suicide, and
all because I had told the senator that he was to arrange for us to
have a drive alone in the afternoon, and he overheard in the echo the
place makes. I had never asked him to drive alone he said, and I said,
certainly not, the senator and I would talk philosophy, whereas he
would make love to me, I knew, and it would not be safe. That pacified
him a good deal, and as I had been rather unsympathetic and horrid all
the morning, I was lovely to him for the rest of the day; and he is
really quite a dear, Mamma, as I have always told you.
Octavia says she thinks it rather hard my grabbing everybody like this,
and she had wanted the senator for herself on our trip, so we have
agreed to share him, and Tom says it is mean no one has been asked for
him. So the senator has wired to "Lola" to bring two cousins to meet us
at Los Angeles. He says they are the sweetest girls in the world, and
would keep anyone alive. I am rather longing to get there and begin our
fun. After the falls we did the rapids, and they impressed me far more
deeply; they are rushing, wicked-looking things if you like, Mamma, and
how anyone ever swam them I can't imagine. The spring is all too
beautiful, only just beginning, and some of the bends of the river and
views are exquisite. I felt quite romantic on the way back, and allowed
Gaston to repeat poetry to me. We are just starting to get on to
Chicago, so good-bye, dear Mamma.
Love from your affectionate daughter,
ELIZABETH.
P.S.--Octavia says she thinks I am leading Gaston on, but I don't, do
you, Mamma? Considering I stop him every time he begins any long
sentence about love--what more can I do, eh?
CHICAGO.
CHICAGO.
DEAREST MAMMA,--We had such an interesting dinner on the train the
night we left Niagara, and here we are. A millionaire travelling also,
whom the senator knew, joined us for the meal, so we sat four at one
table, and Gaston and Octavia alone at the other side. He was such a
wonderful person, the first of just this kind we have met yet, although
we are told there are more like him in Pittsburg and Chicago.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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