"After sweeping over the vast monotony of the Lakes, to come to this monotony of land, with all around a limitless horizon--to walk and walk, but never climb! How the eye greeted the approach of a sail or the smoke of a steamboat; it seemed that anything so animated must come from a better land, where mountains give religion to the scene. But after I had ridden out and seen the flowers, and observed the sun set with that calmness seen only in the prairies, and the cattle winding slowly to their homes in the 'island groves,' most peaceful of sights, I began to love, because I began to know, the scene, and shrank no longer from the encircling vastness." Here followed an excursion of three weeks in a strong wagon drawn by a stalwart pair of horses, and supplied with all that could be needed, as the journey was through Rock River valley, beyond the regions of trade and barter. Margaret speaks of "a guide equally admirable as marshal and companion." This was none other than a younger brother of James Freeman Clarke, William Hull Clarke by name, a man who then and thereafter made Chicago his home, and who lived and died an honored and respected citizen. This journey with Margaret, in which his own sister was of the party, always remained one of the poetic recollections of his early life. He had suffered much from untoward circumstances, and was beginning to lose the elasticity of youth under the burden of his discouragements. Margaret's sympathy divined the depth and delicacy of William Clarke's character, and her unconquerable spirit lifted him from the abyss of despondency into a cheerfulness and courage which nevermore forsook him. Returning to Chicago, Margaret once more embarked for lake travel, and her next chapter describes Wisconsin, at that time "a Territory, not yet a State; still nearer the acorn than we were." Milwaukee was then a small town, promising, as she says, "to be, some time, a fine one." The yellow brick, of which she found it mostly built, pleased her, as it has pleased the world since. No railroads with mysterious initials served, in those days, the needs of that vast region. The steamer, arriving once in twenty-four hours, brought mails and travellers, and a little stir of novelty and excitement. Going a day's journey into the adjacent country, Margaret and her companions found such accommodation as is here mentioned:-- "The little log-cabin where we slept, with its flower-garden in front, disturbed the scene no more than a lock upon a fair cheek. The hospitality of that house I may well call princely; it was the boundless hospitality of the heart, which, if it has no Aladdin's lamp to create a palace for the guest, does him still greater service by the freedom of its bounty to the very last drop of its powers."