"Oh, _us_ means Clara, and myself, and baby, and any friends we choose to bring,--or, I should say, who will do us the honor to accompany us. We are hospitable people and the more the merrier. I know how much house-room Carl has; there is always a prophet's chamber, as the parsons call it, for such occasions. You _must_ come; there's no two ways about that. You will see two very fine women there,--_nice persons_, as you would say: my sisters-in-law, Miss Vanderlyn, and Mrs. Carl Benson." "But at any rate, would it not be better to write first, and apprise him of the additional visitor?" "We should be there a week before our letter. _Ecoutez!_ There is no post-office near us here, and my note would have to go to the city by a special messenger. Then the offices along the Hudson are perfectly antediluvian and barbarous, and mere mockery and delusion. Observe, I speak of the small local posts; on the main routes letters travel fast enough. You may send to Albany in nine hours; to Carl's place, which is about two-thirds of the distance to Albany, it would take more than half as many days,--if, indeed, it arrived at all. I remember once propounding this problem in the _Blunder and Bluster:--'If a letter sent from New York to Hastings, distance 22 miles, never gets there, how long will it take one to go from New York to Red Hook, distance 110 miles?'_ We are shockingly behind you in our postal arrangements; _there_ I give up the country. 'No, you musn't write, but come yourself,' as Penelope said to Ulysses."