I should like to hear from
you, and sometimes I am a little homesick, when I think how pleasantly
Bellisle is looking, and how happy you all must be. Then what would I
not give for your pet bookcase with its treasures, the nice Rollo books
and Marco Paul's adventures, and dear old Robinson Crusoe! I am tired,
too, of looking at men, and fairly long to see some one who will remind
me of mother, or my sweet sister Nannie, or of the "Queen of
Flowers,"--you know who I mean.

I suspect that brother Clarendon has something of the same feeling, for
yesterday I saw him take a miniature out of what I had always thought
before was a watch-case, and it was such a pretty face that I don't
wonder that he sighed when he looked at it.

But in spite of sighing and groaning, and hard fare and hard work,
Clarendon is getting better very fast, and some of the sailors, who at
first laughed at his affectation, are beginning to have a profound
respect for him, and he in his turn seems to look much more benevolently
upon mankind in general, and to be able to interest himself in the rough
characters around him. I think he cut the greatest figure washing out
his red-flannel shirt yesterday, and he laughed himself at the idea of
some of his fashionable friends catching a glimpse of him while thus
employed.

I do not like Captain Cobb much, though he is very shrewd, and sometimes
tells David and me such funny stories; but he seems to have no
principle, and has brought up David to think that if he can ever be a
great man it is no matter whether he is a good one.

Yesterday, David and I were having one of our long talks, for we pass a
great deal of time in chatting when the weather is not favorable for
fishing, and I think we shall soon know pretty well the history of each
other's lives. He was telling me about the Latin High School in Boston,
and, from what he says of it, I am sure if a boy don't learn there it
must be his own fault.

One day we were discussing our favorite characters in history, just as
you and I used to do at Bellisle, and David was very much amused when I
told him that those I most admired were Aristides, St. Paul, and General
Washington. His favorites are Alexander the Great, Napoleon Bonaparte,
and Washington. So we agree about one of them, but differ widely as to
the other two. David absolutely laughed when I mentioned St. Paul with
Aristides, and seemed to think that I only named him because I had been
taught that i