e Ladies' Wreath;" the Rev. Mr.
Brace, an editor in the employ of the Tract Society; Mr. Daniel Breed,
M.D., a Quaker, and principal of a private academy for young gentlemen
(also the landlady's son-in-law); Mr. Oliver Johnson, a sub-editor of
the _Daily Tribune_, and a well-known Abolitionist; and Mr. Lockwood, a
retired grocer,--who, having gained a small independence, was thus
enjoying it with his youthful wife and child in lodgings.

Into society better adapted to my taste and purposes I could not have
gone. This mode of life is very extensively adopted in America,
--married couples, with families, living in this manner for
years, without the least loss of respectability. They seldom have
sitting-rooms distinct from their bed-rooms, which are made to answer
both purposes; and as to meals, all meet to eat the same things, at the
same table, and at the same time. The custom is economical; but it has
an injurious effect upon character, especially in the case of the
women. The young wife, not being called upon to exercise herself in
domestic economy, is apt to become idle, slovenly, and--in a certain
sense--worthless. The softening associations and influences, and even
the endearments, of "home," are lost. There is no _domesticity_.

In the evening of the 17th I went to the Broadway Tabernacle, to hear a
lecture on Astronomy from Professor Mitchell of Cincinnati, no ordinary
man. Although the admission fee was half-a-dollar, upwards of a
thousand persons were present. Without either diagrams or notes, the
accomplished lecturer kept his audience in breathless attention for
upwards of an hour. He seemed to be a devout, unassuming man, and threw
a flood of light on every subject he touched. His theme was the recent
discovery of the Leverrier planet; and perhaps you will not be
displeased if I give you a summary of his lucid observations. In
observing how the fluctuations of the planet Herschel had ultimately
led to this discovery, he said:

"For a long time no mind dared to touch the problem. At length a young
astronomer rises, unknown to fame, but with a mind capable of grasping
all the difficulties involved in any of these questions. I refer of
course to LEVERRIER. He began by taking up the movements of Mercury. He
was dissatisfied with the old computations and the old tables; and he
ventured to begin anew, and to compute an entirely new set of tables.
With these new tables, he predicted the _precise instant_ when the