Until the railway was continued “down the Cape,” travellers there were far more likely to make their journeys to and from Boston by the packets than by stage. “For fifty years,” writes Swift, “the arrival and departure of the packets was the important topic of North side intelligence, which was communicated promptly to the dwellers on the South side, that they might govern themselves thereby in arranging their business or their travels.” There are pretty stories of voyages on the packets: of the little girl, wide-eyed with expectation, in big bonnet and mitts, and a flowered bandbox for luggage, who is entrusted to the captain for safe delivery into the hands of her kinsmen in Boston. One old lady, whose histrionic sense developed early, remembered that once when she was visiting Boston as a child there was a smallpox epidemic. “I couldn’t help laughing,” said she, “to think if I had got it and died, how grand it would have been to be brought home by the packet, me on board sailing up the harbor with colors half-mast.” There were young ladies setting out for their finishing-school in the metropolis. And on any trip there was sure to be a deep-water captain starting out to “join his ship” at Boston or New York for the longer voyage overseas; beside him, perhaps, his wife companioning him as far as she might, and when he had sailed returning to the children and the three years on the farm without him. Then, when his ship had been spoken by a faster sailer, and was due to “arrive,” she would go up to the city and wait sometimes through anxious weeks until it was sighted down the harbor. Nor were they likely to be idle weeks. “I am so busy I do not know how to stop to write except it is absolutely necessary,” she might write to the little flock at home. “It is a great misfortune to have such a busy mother, but you must make the best of it. I am improving every moment in sewing, looking forward to September when father’s home for my leisure.” And, joy to read, she has decided to let them come to town. “You must come by packet, and you better not make any visits except to grandmother as you will need all your time to prepare. Susan must have all her petticoats fresh starched; Joseph must get his whitewashing done and his garden in perfect order. We shall want lots of potatoes if father is at home next winter. How does my flower garden flourish? Fix up the pigstye as I want it ready when I get home. Fasten the gates strong so the cattle cannot get in, and see to the water fence. Susan need not fetch a bonnet-box unless it rains when she goes to the packet. Hang your bonnet up on board and wear your sunbonnet. Put the things which you will need to put on when you get here in the leather bag. Remember if it is evening, stay on board all night unless there is some one on board you know to go with you. You may think you know the way, but there have been a great many changes since you were here, and the city looks very different in the