In the past year have read Vicar of Wakefield and some of Jane
    Austen—­thoroughly artificial.  Have begun Children of the Abbey. 
    It begins with this “Impromptu” from the sentimental heroine: 

“Hail, sweet asylum of my infancy!  Content and innocence reside beneath your humble roof and charity unboastful of the good it renders . . . .  Here unmolested may I wait till the rude storm of sorrow is overblown and my father’s arms are again extended to receive me.”

    Has the ear-marks of preparation.

They were at the island of Mauritius by the middle of April, that curious bit of land mainly known to the world in the romance of Paul and Virginia, a story supposed by some in Mauritius to be “a part of the Bible.”  They rested there for a fortnight and then set sail for South Africa on the ship Arundel Castle, which he tells us is the finest boat he has seen in those waters.

It was the end of the first week in May when they reached Durban and felt that they were nearing home.

One more voyage and they would be in England, where they had planned for Susy and Jean to join them.

Mrs. Clemens, eager for letters, writes of her disappointment in not finding one from Susy.  The reports from Quarry Farm had been cheerful, and there had been small snap-shot photographs which were comforting, but her mother heart could not be entirely satisfied that Susy did not send letters.  She had a vague fear that some trouble, some illness, had come to Susy which made her loath to write.  Susy was, in fact, far from well, though no one, not even Susy herself, suspected how serious was her condition.

Mrs. Clemens writes of her own hopefulness, but adds that her husband is often depressed.

Mr. Clemens has not as much courage as I wish he had, but, poor old darling, he has been pursued with colds and inabilities of various sorts.  Then he is so impressed with the fact that he is sixty years old.  Naturally I combat that thought all I can, trying to make him rejoice that he is not seventy . . . .

He does not believe that any good thing will come, but that we must all our lives live in poverty.  He says he never wants to go back to America.  I cannot think that things are as black as he paints them, and I trust that if I get him settled down for work in some quiet English village he will get back much of his cheerfulness; in fact, I believe he will because that is what he wants to do, and that is the work that he loves:  The platform he likes for the two hours that he is on it, but all the rest of the time it grinds him, and he says he is ashamed of what he is doing.  Still, in spite of this sad undercurrent, we are having a delightful trip.  People are so nice, and with people Mr. Clemens seems cheerful.  Then the ocean trips are a great rest to him.

Mrs. Clemens and Clara remained at the hotel in Durban