But in writing about Mr. Hempstead, I have neglected his sister. Miss Hempstead was a tall, fine-looking young girl, with, however, a strikingly foreign appearance for an American _pur sang_. She was born, she told me, in Belize, Central America, where her father was United States Consul. A tropical sun had given her a complexion of Spanish darkness, heightened by large black eyes and jet black hair--the exact counterpart, Ida afterwards told me, of her brother, who was often mistaken for a Cuban. When the period of the consulate of Mr. Hempstead pere was over, he had become so much attached to Belize, that he decided to make it his future residence. His daughter said she could not imagine what he found to like in the place, for between earthquakes and yellow fever, one was in a continual state of terror; there was no society, the population being almost entirely negro, and no schools; consequently the children of the few white resident families were obliged to go to England or to the United States to be educated. Miss Hempstead was sent to London, and five or six years of the discipline of a first-class English school have made her quite different from the fully fledged society queens who graduate from our Murray Hill _pensionnats_ at sixteen or so. A little English reserve to tone down somewhat their sparkling natures is all that our bewitching American girls need to make them perfect, but I fear they will for several years yet bear the stigma of, "Charming, but too wild." CHAPTER V. Sunday in the Country--Proximity of a Meeting-house--How we pass our Sundays--The House in the Woods--Ida's Glen--Mrs. Greeley's Favorite Spring--The Children's Play-house--Gabrielle's Pets--Travelling in 1836--New York Society--Mr. Greeley's Friday Evenings--Mrs. Greeley as a Bride--Her Accomplishments--A Letter concerning Mr. Greeley's Wedding. _June 16_. Sunday is, I think, a very _triste_ day in the country (low be it spoken). I cannot remain longer than an hour at church, for the Mass is a low one, and the sermon consists of fifteen minutes of plain, practical instruction, unembellished by rhetoric, to the congregation. The church, it is true, is four miles distant, but Gabrielle's aristocratic ponies, Lady Alice and The Duchess, fairly fly over the ground--up or down hill, it is immaterial to them--and consequently, I find myself, when my religious duties are over, with many idle hours upon my hands. The croquet balls and mallets, our "Magic Rings," and other out-of-door games, are put away in the "children's play-house," a little white hut on the borders of the croquet ground, where Ida and dear little Raffie used to keep their toys, and where Gabrielle in later days housed her menagerie of pets.