We were up at 7, this morning, with a 9-hour journey before us & no parlor car. But we are getting along all right. The train stops every half a mile. It is now 1 p.m., & this car has been filled & emptied with farmer-people some 300 times. They are a constant interest to me—their clothes, their manners, attitudes, aspect, expression—when they have any. A small country boy, a while ago, discussed a negro woman in her easy hearing-distance, to his 17-year old sister: “Mighty good clothes for a nigger, hain’t they? I never see a nigger dressed so fine before.” She was throroughly well & tastefully dressed, & had more brains & breeding than 7 generations of that boy’s family will be able to show. I spent an hour, a while ago, re-writing a thing which is in the Tramp Abroad—speeches of a couple of bragging, loud-mouthed raftsmen. I cut it up into single-sentence speeches,—these sentences to be spoken alternately , (a lively running-fire of brag & boast) by Cable & me, for Pond’s amusement, nights, in our room. When I had finished this bit of dramatization, I had handed the MS over my shoulder to Cable & Pond, & as Cable began to read it to himself, a benevolent-looking middle-aged good-natured school-teacherish sort of an ass rea reached in the next seat behind stretched his long neck forward & began to read over Cable’s shoulder with the most innocent eagerness you ever saw. I had to say twice to him, “It’s private, sir,” before he understood, so absorbed was he. Then he settled back to his place with a child’s timid confusion.

3. P.M. Decatur, Ill. Here is the bulk of the day gone, & I have not noticed the flight of time— been busy & interested. We have been waiting here 20 or 30 minutes; & then jumped aboard the wrong train & made ourselves comfortable in a drawing room car bound for Niagara Falls, or up there somewhere. Learned our mistake only just time enough to snatch on our wraps & overshoes & jump skip aboard the right train.

Woman & 4 little children in one party crying, & another party of women & girls seeing them off & crying. Asked why the crying? Woman said she & her children were leaving their home here to go & live in Portland,o Oregon, & these others were her young sisters, &c.

Blaine did betray his wife before marriage, & the child was born 3 months after the wedding. He then left her in Maine & returned West & engaged himself to marry one of the Marshall family of Kentucky; & after this girl learned the above things he still tried to persuade her (in letters which still exist, in his own hand & signed by himself,) & assured her he would soon be able to get rid of “this woman” (his wife.) The above facts are all beyond doubt or question, & would have been proven on the trial if Blaine had not withdrawn his libel suit. And he knew they would be proved. I talked with a perfectly trustworthy man who has had those letters in his hands & read them. I love you, darling.