Where are the Prentisses?  Gone to Chicago,
  Gone bag and baggage, the whole crew and cargo. 
  Well, they would go, now let’s talk ’em over,
  And see what compensation we can discover.

They are all “talked over” and then in Part II. the scene changes to Chicago itself: 

  Sing a song of sixpence, a pocket full of rye,
  Here’s the tribe of Prentisses just agoing by;
        Dr. Prentiss he,
        Mrs. Prentiss she,
  And a lot of young ones that all begin with P.
  Well, let us view them with our eyes,
  And then begin to criticise. 
  And first the doctor, what of him?

The doctor having been fully discussed, the criticism proceeds: 

  Now for his wife; well, who would guess
  She had set up as authoress! 
  Why, she looks just like all of us,
  Instead of being in a muss
  Like other literary folks. 
  They say she likes her little jokes,
  As well as those who’ve less to say
  Of stepping on the heavenward way.

Mrs. P. having been disposed of: 

  Next comes Miss P.; how she will make
  The hearts of all the students quake! 
  She’ll wind them round her fingers’ ends,
  And find in them one hundred friends. 
  They’ll sit on benches in a row
  And watch her come, and watch her go;
  But they’ll be safe, the precious rogues,
  Since she don’t care for theologues.

The other children next pass in review and the whole closes with the remark: 

  Time, and Time only, will make clear
  Why the poor geese came cackling here.

To a young Friend, New York, Nov., 1871.

My heart is as young and fresh as any girl’s, and I am almost as prone to make idols out of those I love, as I ever was; and this is inconsistent with the devotion owed to God.  I do not mean that I really love anybody better than I do Him, but that human friendships tempt me.  This easily-besetting sin of mine has cost me more anguish than tongue can tell, and I deeply feel the need of more love to Christ because of my earthly tendencies.  I know I would sacrifice every friend to Christ, but I am not always disentangled.  How strange this is, how passing strange!...  In a religious way I find myself much better off here than at Dorset.  But there is yet something apparently “far off, unattained and dim” that I once thought I had caught by the wing, and enjoyed for a season, but which has flown away.  I am afraid I am one who has got to be a religious enthusiast, or else dissatisfied and restless.  When I give way to an impulse to the first, I care for nothing worldly, and am at peace.  But I am unfitted for daily life, for secular talk and reading.  Is it so with you?  Does it run in our blood?  I do long and pray for more light; and I will pray for more love, cost what it may.  Sometimes I long to get to heaven, where I shall not have to be curbing my heart with bit and bridle, and can be as loving as I want to be—­as I am.