might rest and have been silent. In the morning, however, I forgot the little annoyance in breakfast and conversation with my kind hostess and her agreeable only daughter. The sun shone into the room, and the whole had the character of a good home made warm by love. In such homes I always do well, and I should have liked to have stayed longer with Mrs. Sigourney had it been possible. At parting she presented me with a handsome volume of her collected poetical works, and therein I read a poem called “Our Country,” for which I could have kissed her hand, so beautiful was it, and so noble and so truly feminine is the spirit it breathes. As coming from a woman and a mother there is great beauty in the following address to her native land—
Ah beautiful and glorious! thou dost wrap
The robes of Liberty around thy breast,
And as a matron watch thy little ones
Who from their cradle seek the village-school,
Bearing the baptism on their infant brow
Of Christian faith and knowledge; like the bud
That at the bursting of its sheath, doth feel
Pure dews, and heavenward turn.
There is thy strength,
In thy young children, and in those who lead
Their souls to righteousness. The mother's prayer
With her sweet lisper ere it sinks to rest—
The faithful teacher mid a plastic group—
The classic halls, the hamlets slender spire,
From whence, as from the solemn gothic pile
That crowns the city's pomp, ascendeth sweet
Jehovah's praise; these are thy strength, my land!
These are thy hope.
Oh lonely ark, that rid'st
A tossing deluge, dark with history's wrecks,
And paved with dead that made not heaven their help,
God keep thee perfect in thy many parts,
Bound in one living whole.
After those pleasant morning hours I was obliged again
to see people, and was therefore taken out by my hostess
in a carriage to see the town, which appears to me to be
