Canada follows of course, and then--let me write the blessed word
in capitals--we turn towards HOME.

Kate has written to Mrs. Macready, and it is useless for me to thank
you, my dearest friend, or her, for your care of our dear children,
which is our constant theme of discourse. Forster has gladdened our
hearts with his account of the triumph of "Acis and Galatea," and I am
anxiously looking for news of the tragedy. Forrest breakfasted with us
at Richmond last Saturday--he was acting there, and I invited him--and
he spoke very gratefully, and very like a man, of your kindness to him
when he was in London.

David Colden is as good a fellow as ever lived; and I am deeply in love
with his wife. Indeed we have received the greatest and most earnest and
zealous kindness from the whole family, and quite love them all. Do you
remember one Greenhow, whom you invited to pass some days with you at
the hotel on the Kaatskill Mountains? He is translator to the State
Office at Washington, has a very pretty wife, and a little girl of five
years old. We dined with them, and had a very pleasant day. The
President invited me to dinner, but I couldn't stay for it. I had a
private audience, however, and we attended the public drawing-room
besides.

Now, don't you rush at the quick conclusion that I have rushed at a
quick conclusion. Pray, be upon your guard. If you can by any process
estimate the extent of my affectionate regard for you, and the rush I
shall make when I reach London to take you by your true right hand, I
don't object. But let me entreat you to be very careful how you come
down upon the sharpsighted individual who pens these words, which you
seem to me to have done in what Willmott would call "one of Mr.
Macready's rushes." As my pen is getting past its work, I have taken a
new one to say that

I am ever, my dear Macready,
Your faithful Friend.

[Sidenote: Mr. Thomas Mitton.]

BALTIMORE, UNITED STATES, _March 22nd, 1842._

MY DEAR FRIEND,

We have been as far south as Richmond in Virginia (where they grow and
manufacture tobacco, and where the labour is all performed by slaves),
but the season in those latitudes is so intensely and prematurely hot,
that it was considered a matter of doubtful expediency to go on to
Charleston. For this unexpected reason, and because the country between
Richmond and Charlest