On the morrow, we had a letter from him, notifying us that they had exchanged the date of sailing for October 15th, and the boat for the _City of Berlin_, in which we were to sail. “A trifling delay of twenty-one years!” observed my husband, philosophically. “If all human projects came as near prompt fulfilment as that, there would be fewer grumblers.” We took with us our three children and my maid, who had been the boy’s nurse. In _Loiterings in Pleasant Paths_, written in part while we sojourned abroad, she figures as “The Invaluable.” Never was title more justly earned. In that book the events of the next two years are recorded at greater length than they could be set down here. I made no note there of the pain that seemed to pluck out our heartstrings, consequent upon our parting with our Newark parish and fellow-citizens. We had grown with the place, which was a mere village, eighteen years ago, by comparison with the large city we left. Her interests were ours. Doctor Terhune was identified with her public and private enterprises, and known by sight and by reputation throughout the town and its environs. His church stubbornly refused to consider his resignation as final. He might have an indefinite leave of absence—two, four, six years—provided he would engage to come to them when he could bring me back well. He wisely refused to listen to the proposal. The business quarter of the thriving city was encroaching upon the neighborhood of the church. It was likely to be abandoned as “a residential locality” within a few years. In which event, the removal of building and congregation would be a necessity. The history of such changes in the character of sections of fast-enlarging cities is familiar to all urbanites. It was essential, in the opinion of the retiring incumbent, that the church should select another pastor speedily, if it would retain its integrity and identity. The love and loyalty that had enveloped us, like a vitalizing atmosphere, for almost a score of winters and summers, wrapped us warmly to the last. There were public receptions and private house-parties, by the dozen, and “Partings such as press The life from out the heart,”— and a gathering on the steamer on sailing-day that made us homesick in anticipation of the actual rending of ties that were living flesh and blood—and we were afloat. As one of the leading men in the church shook my husband’s hand, in leaving the deck, he pressed into it an envelope. We were well down the bay when it was opened. It contained a supplementary letter of credit of three thousand dollars—the farewell gift of a few men whose names accompanied the token. “Faithful to the end!” murmured the recipient, reading the short list through mists that thickened between his eyes and the paper. “Had ever another man such a parish?” I answered “No!” then, emphatically. My response would be the same to-day. XLIV TWO YEARS OVERSEAS—LIFE IN ROME AND GENEVA