She kissed me, and I kissed her hand, with tears in my eyes.

We return to Bjoernemose to bid our parents good-by; then farewell to Denmark.

We leave in four days for New York.

WASHINGTON, February, 1879.

Dear Mother,—­Monsieur de Schloezer is one of the colleagues whom we like best.  I wish you knew him!  I do not know anything more delightful than to see him and Carl Schurz together.  They are not unlike in character; they are both witty, refined, always seeing the beautiful in everything, almost boyish in their enthusiasm, and clever, cela va sans dire, to their finger-tips.  They bring each other out, and they both appear at their best, which is saying a great deal.  We consider that we are fortunate to number them among our intimes.

Would it interest you to know how these intimes amuse themselves?  Life is so simple in Washington, and there are so few distractions outside of society, that we only have our social pleasures to take the place of theaters and public entertainments.  It is unlike Paris and other capitals in this respect.

We have organized a club which we call “The National Rational International Dining Club,” to which belong Mrs. Bigelow Lawrence, her sister Miss Chapman, Mr. de Schloezer, Carl Schurz, Aristarchi Bey (the Turkish Minister), Count Doenhoff (Secretary to the German Legation), and ourselves.  So when we are free, and not invited elsewhere, we dine together at one another’s houses.  I am the president, Mrs. Lawrence the vice-president, Schurz the treasurer, Schloezer the sergeant-at-arms, and Johan has the most difficult—­and (as Mr. Schurz calls it) the “onerous”—­duty of recognizing and calling attention to the jokes, which in his conscientious attempts to seize he often loses entirely.

The “rational” part is the menu.  We are allowed a soup, one roast, one vegetable and dessert, and two wines, one of which, according to the regulations, must be good.  We do not even need so much, for there is more laughing than eating.  A stuffed goose from the Smithsonian Institution serves as a milieu de table, and is sent, on the day of the dinner, to the person who gives it.

We always have music.  Schurz and Schloezer play the piano alternately, and I do the singing.  I must say that a more appreciative audience than our co-diners cannot be imagined.

We have laws and by-laws written on large foolscap paper, bearing a huge seal which looks very official.  Mr. Schurz carries it in his inside pocket, and sometimes at large dinners he pulls it out and begins reading it with the greatest attention, and every one at the table believes that there is something very important going on in politics.  But we, the initiated, know that the document is the law of the N.R.I.  Dining Club.  Then, when all eyes are fastened on him, he puts the paper deliberately back in his pocket, with a sly wink at the members.