friends a generation ago for saying, in a little guide book which I wrote for New England travellers, that the best way to go from Providence to Newport is by a voyage in a friend's yacht. I still hold to that instruction, though it may THE EVACUATION OF BOSTON, MARCH 17, 1776. From an engraving by F. T. Stuart of the drawing by L. Hollis. give one a slightly exaggerated sense of the resources of the country. Thus, the first time I ever went along Cape Cod, my cosmopolitan friend, Mr. Freeman Cobb, took me with his four-in-hand barouche over the admirable highroads of Brewster. We were deprived by accident of the company of a very distinguished French traveller who was "doing" America. And I have delighted myself ever since with imagining what his description of Cape Cod would have been if he had gone with us on that day's outing. For I am afraid from that time to this time no four-in-hand has been driven over those sands, certainly none by a more accomplished or agreeable guide. Of course the gentle reader may begin where he likes. I should not be sorry if, hiring a cottage at Nahant or Marblehead Neck or on the Beverly Shore, quite early in June, he made William and Edward, if those were the names of his groomsmen, keep up the horses in good condition till Thanksgiving time, and from these centres if he and Madam and the older children made excursions, a week at a time, into the different regions of Massachusetts. But possibly the horses may be sick with some epizoötic disease - possibly William and Edward may have returned for the summer to visit Tipperary or Rügen, and we may need the trolley, steamboat, or, best of all, our good feet. In that case, Boston |