CHAPTER XVII.
It may seem a sudden transition from society to a cemetery, and yet it is not an unnatural one, for many of the citizens of New York carry their magnificence as far as possible to the grave with them, and pile their wealth above their heads in superb mausoleums or costly statues. The Père la Chaise of the city is the Greenwood Cemetery, near Brooklyn on Long Island. I saw it on the finest and coldest of November days, when a piercing east wind was denuding the trees of their last scarlet honours. After encountering more than the usual crush in Broadway, for we were rather more than an hour in driving three miles in a stage, we crossed the Brooklyn Ferry in one of those palace ferry-boats, where the spacious rooms for passengers are heated by steam-pipes, and the charge is only one cent, or a fraction less than a half-penny. It was a beautiful day; there was not a cloud upon the sky; the waves of the Sound and of the North River were crisped and foam-tipped, and dashed noisily upon the white pebbly beach. Brooklyn, Jersey, and Hoboken rose from the water, with their green fields and