he grasp of that first
chill, a native of the State, who had got in at some way station,
pronounced it, with a doctoral air, "a fever and ague morning."

The Dutch widow was a person of some character. She had conceived at
first sight a great aversion for the present writer, which she was at
no pains to conceal. But, being a woman of a practical spirit, she made
no difficulty about accepting my attentions, and encouraged me to buy
her children fruits and candies, to carry all her parcels, and even to
sleep upon the floor that she might profit by my empty seat. Nay, she
was such a rattle by nature, and so powerfully moved to autobiographical
talk, that she was forced, for want of a better, to take me into
confidence and tell me the story of her life. I heard about her late
husband, who seemed to have made his chief impression by taking her out
pleasuring on Sundays. I could tell you her prospects, her hopes, the
amount of her fortune, the cost of her housekeeping by the week, and a
variety of particular matters that are not usually disclosed except to
friends. At one station, she shook up her children to look at a man on
the platform and say if he were not like Mr. Z.; while to me she
explained how she had been keeping company with this Mr. Z., how far
matters had proceeded, and how it was because of his desistance that she
was now travelling to the west. Then, when I was thus put in possession
of the facts, she asked my judgment on that type of manly beauty. I
admired it to her heart's content. She was not, I think, remarkably
veracious in talk, but broidered as fancy prompted, and built castles in
the air out of her past; yet she had that sort of candour, to keep me,
in spite of all these confidences, steadily aware of her aversion. Her
parting words were ingeniously honest. "I am sure," said she, "we all
_ought_ to be very much obliged to you." I cannot pretend that she put
me at my ease; but I had a certain respect for such a genuine dislike. A
poor nature would have slipped, in the course of these familiarities,
into a sort of worthless toleration for me.

We reached Chicago in the evening. I was turned out of the cars, bundled
into an omnibus, and driven off through the streets to the station of a
different railroad. Chicago seemed a great and gloomy city. I remember
having subscribed, let us say sixpence, towards its restoration at the
period of the fire; and now when I beheld street after street of
ponderous hou