derfully powerful and beautifully arranged and safe
home, in which we were moving on this immense and turbid ocean,
carrying within her the great central fire by which the engine was
moved, which, in spite of winds and waves, carried us safely along;
then the science which enabled the master of this curious nutshell of
man's contriving to know just in what part of this waste of trackless
waters we were. All these things I knew before, and had often thought
of them, but was never so impressed with them; it was almost as if they
were new to me.

Before I quit the ocean, I must tell you of what I saw for which I
cannot account, and, had not one of the gentlemen seen it too, I should
almost have doubted my senses. When we were entirely out of sight of
land, I saw a white butterfly hovering over the waves, and looking as
if he were at home. Where the beautiful creature came from, or how he
lived, or what would become of him, no one could tell. He seemed to me
to be there as a symbol and a declaration that the souls of those whose
bodies lay in the ocean were yet living and present with those they had
loved.

When we arrived at Liverpool, we found a very dear friend, whom we had
known in America, on the wharf ready to receive us. He took us to his
house, and we felt that we were not, after all, in a strange land. Love
and kindness are the home of all souls, and show us what heaven must be.

The thing that impressed me most was the dim light of the English day,
the soft, undefined shadows, compared with our brilliant sunshine and
sharply defined shade--then the coloring of the houses, the streets,
the ground, of every thing; no bright colors, all sober, some very
dark,--the idea of age, gravity, and stability. Nobody seems in a
hurry. Our country seems so young and vehement; this so grave and
collected!

Now I will tell you something about my visit to my dear friend Harriet
Martineau, whose beautiful little books, "Feats on the Fiord," "The
Crofton Boys," and the others, you love so much to read. She lives at
Ambleside, in what is called the Lake Country. Ambleside is a beautiful
country town in the valley of the Rotha, and not far from Lake
Windermere. Around the town rise high hills, which perhaps may be
called mountains. These mountains are not, like many of ours, clothed
to the summit with thick wild forests, but have fewer trees, and are
often bare at the summit. The mixture of gray rock and green grass
forms such a