My dear sisters:--I made what people here call a flying visit to Washington, which means, I suppose, that the railroad cars go about as swift as a bird flies, which they do, if one is allowed to choose the bird--a white bantam, for instance, with clipped wings. Well, I really don't know much about the speed, only I was awful tired when we got out of the cars at Jersey City, and we had the lonesomest drive home just before daylight that two tired mortals ever undertook. The whole city was still as a graveyard, and put one in mind of those cities over the sea, dug out of the ashes in which they have been buried hundreds on hundreds of years. To me, sisters, nothing is more dreary than a great city shut up and full of sleeping people. Only think of it! half a million of human beings all lying in darkness, unconscious of both happiness or misery, just as if sleeping in their tombs, only that the first glow of sunshine brings them to life again. Did you ever think of it? Now, in the country the stillness is not so mournful--there is a sense of out-door freedom there. The leaves stir with life on the trees. The brooks murmur and gurgle and laugh by night as they do by day. The birds flutter now and then, and the winds whistle and whisper, filling the night with a stir of life. But here--here in a great city, a ghost-like policeman, or a poor straggling wretch who has no home but the street, is all that you see. Indeed, coming home before daybreak isn't a thing I hanker to do over again. Well, after pulling at the bell-knob till I'm afraid Cousin Dempster swore internally, we got into the house, and had a good long sleep before breakfast. "I'm so glad you've come," says Cousin E. E., "for the Liederkranz comes off to-night, and I was afraid we should lose it. Of course you'll go, Cousin Frost?" "Well," says I, "perhaps I can tell better when I know what the thing is. It's a crabbled sort of a word, that might belong to an aligator or kangaroo; and I don't care overmuch for wild-beast shows, any way." Cousin E. E. laughed. "Well," says she, "in some sense you are right. There will be a show of wild animals such as never roamed in field or forest, but none of them are dangerous; at any rate, in that form." "Are they in a circus, and is there a clown with a chalky face and red patches?" says I. "The circus!" says she, a-holding up both hands. "Why, it is to be in the Academy of Music, and the first people in the city are going." "To see them feed?" says I. "Well, that may be a part of it, but the principal thing is the parade." "But where do they feed the animals--not in the boxes with red velvet cushions, I calculate?" "Oh, how funny you are! Of course not; the supper is set out in Nilsson Hall, and is served _à la carte_."