MY DARLING SISTER:--We reached our home here last night. While I write the perfume of almonds and orange blossoms, of climbing vines, and roses shedding their incense in lavish fragrance steals in through the open window. A mocking bird is mimicking an oriole's warblings, and I fancy I feel at this moment as do ransomed souls when amid the mansions of the redeemed they open their eyes and know that for them joy is to be eternal. You have always called me "Old Matter-of-Fact." Well, then, just imagine me sitting here half blinded by the tears of happiness that I can not restrain. But let me tell you of my journey. You remember that though the sky was bright overhead--as bright as it can be in Pittsburg--on the morning that we were married, when we took the train in the evening it was snowing hard. Before morning the train was delayed by the snow. We worried along, however, and the next evening arrived at Peoria, Illinois. Here an old friend of my husband (is not that word husband lovely?) your husband and father's, with his wife met us at the depot and we had to go home with them and stay two days. The man's name is Carlin and he is "a splendid fellow," as they say out this way. He was one of the Club to which our husbands belonged. He has a mill, store and farm a few miles from Peoria and seems to be the first man in that region. He has, too, a charming wife whom he calls "Susie Dick," and a six months' old baby which he calls "Brewster Miller Carlin." They are as hearty people in their friendship as I ever met. They asked all about your husband, and yourself, and I had to get out your photograph to convince them that you were far more beautiful than myself. When we arrived Mr. Carlin sent out and got in some twenty couples, and to use his own expression, "we made a night of it," and "painted the town red," that is until midnight. They made me sing and play, and one old gentleman present made me proud, by telling me "you beat ord'nary primer donners." After the company retired Mr. Carlin asked me how I liked the old gentleman's pronunciation, and then husband said the old gentleman knew as much about music as our minister in Taunton did about mining. Then he told Mr. Carlin what Mr. Ashman said about tunnels, drifts, stations, etc., and the man laughed until the tears ran down his cheeks. Well, at length, with blessings, presents, and packed lunch baskets, we got away. All through Illinois and Iowa the world was hid by the snow, we passed Omaha, crossed Nebraska, climbed the Rocky Mountains and came down on this side, and swept across the desert of Nevada to Reno. Here we stopped and next day went to Virginia City. I wanted to visit the place where our father died. In Virginia