CHAPTER II.
LETTERS FROM THOMAS AND GRACE CATHERWOOD.
MY DEAR MOTHER,—I have not quite recovered my land legs, and Grace is completely knocked up after our long sea-voyage. We were eleven days on the water, and though it is humiliating to confess it, I was absurdly sick. Grace was wretched in body and mind, and Dorris did the cheerfulness for the whole party. She was irrepressible, and for two days was the only lady at table. We landed yesterday in Liverpool, and came directly here, where we have found nothing but fog and rain. Grace has succumbed to her miseries, and a bad attack of homesickness. There is a suspicious redness about her eyes, and she avoids looking me directly in the face. She told me that nothing would induce her to write a letter to-day, and has retired to her room with a novel to cry; but I shall take her on to Paris in a day or two, where I hope Worth's influence will revive her.
I don't care much for London at this season, myself, and if Grace were not homesick, I might be so, but I feel obliged to differ from my wife. It ruins women to agree
