I arose, and looked around me. No one seemed to feel this man's death. Never in my whole life had I been in such a whirlpool of gayety. There was not a sad or thoughtful face in the crowd. Yet many of the persons there had known the man who lay dead in the city. I had never heard of him till then, but no smiles came to my lips after that mournful knowledge reached me. In the midst of all this hilarious gayety I felt the shadow of human suffering creeping over me, and I rode home from the race-park in sad silence. LXVIII. OFF AGAIN. Dear sisters:--New York City is full of epidemical contagions. Horse-racing is one of them. Every spring and fall it rages fearfully, especially among the female women who wait for the races--dress up for the races, and come out with splendiferous spontaneosity, whenever the fast horses are ready to run. I have been up to see the creatures rush once, and sent you my report, which, owing to verdancy of mind caught from the Green Mountains, was only skim milk to which I now pour in cream with a liberal hand. To own the truth, it takes more than one visit before a regular New England young lady can understand the inns and outs of a horse-race. Now, I dare say you think it a sort of agricultural fair for animals--for the horsey kind meant to show off their beauty, try their speed, and encourage farmers to go in for improvement. Exactly, and a good deal more so. Why, sisters, it's gambling--just gambling, open handed and above board, in which the upper-crust female women of New York take a hand with the men, and glory in it. But I mean to tell you all about it in the regular way, and shall do it as I go along. You never saw such a crowd of carriages, wagons, buggies, and queer horse machines as crowded along the road when we got within three or four miles of the race-course. When we come to the long bridge that runs across the Harlem River, there were two lines of carriages stretching before and behind us, just as far as we could see, horses that tossed their heads and champed their bits, and shone like satin under harnesses mounted with gold and silver, with little looking-glasses flying in and out over their heads, and hoofs that struck the ground like the feet of a Vermont girl when she dances from the heart. All these carriages were filled as if they were on the way to a high jubilation, choke full of ladies, with parasols hovering over them like wild birds taking wing, and great clouds of silk, lace gauze, and shiny stuff a-billowing over the sides, till you could but just see the silk cushions they leaned against. Then, again, some were crowded over with gentlemen, mostly in white hats--which delighted me--some with cigars in their mouths--some not--but every one of them just boiling over with good-nature and fun.