Now, my sweet darling, your old Mammy is just back from a _tremendous_ jaunt. I had a beautiful time in Iowa, and am as well as possible. Only think, travelling and at work for one calendar month, and not a finger ache, 'cept one day, when I had a slight headache. And I brought home over $200 earned by lectures.... _To the same_ THE BERKELEY NUISANCE,[97] NEW YORK, December 26, 1885. ... What have I been doing for the last eight weeks? Never you mind, my little dear. Mostly putting a girdle round the earth by correspondence, and some-ly worrying about my poor relations. Don't you flatter yourself that I ever thought of you under this head. But the ----, and the ----, and the ----, taken together, are enough to give one a turn at the worry-cat system. Well 'm, I had also to see the distribution of the whole edition of my New Orleans Report, and I can only compare this to the process of taking down a house, and of sending each individual brick somewhere, labelled with your compliments; supposing the bricks to be one thousand in number, it would take some time to distribute them, Harry Richards will be able to tell you how much time, and how many masculine oaths would go to each hundred of the articles. Well, that's enough about that. You have had one of my bricks sent you, and hang me if I believe you have read it. Sweetison (a new little 'spression which I have this minute invented), I stayed at Oak Glen until Monday last, which was the 21st. Then I came here by the way of Boston, and arrove on Tuesday evening. Our quarters, or rather eighths, are small, considering my papers and Maud's clothes. The food is fine, the style first-rate, the rigs imposing to a degree, but, ah! I kind of hate it all. New York is too frightfully dirty! and then so stereotyped and commonplace. Boston losing its prestige? Not as I am at present advised.... [97] Berkeley Chambers, where she and Maud spent this winter. CHAPTER V MORE CHANGES 1886-1888; _aet._ 67-69 GIULIA ROMANA ANAGNOS Giulia Romana! how thy trembling beauty, That oft would shudder at one breath of praise, Comes back to me! before the trump of duty Had marshalled thee in life's laborious ways. We used to wonder at thy blush in hearing Thy parents praised. We now know what it meant: A consciousness of their gifts reappearing Perchance in thine--to consummation blent. Oh, she was beautiful, beyond all magic Of sculptor's hand, or pencil to portray! Something angelical, divinely tragic, Tempered the smile that round her lips would play. Dear first-born daughter of a hero's heart! Pass to perfection, all but perfect here! We weep not much, remembering where thou art, Yet, child of Poesy! receive a tear. T. W. PARSONS.