In the morning I took to the same wagon once more, but, instead of James Grayden, I was to have for my driver a young man who spelt his name “Phillip Ottenheimer” and whose features at once showed him to be an Israelite.  I found him agreeable enough, and disposed to talk.  So I asked him many questions about his religion, and got some answers that sound strangely in Christian ears.  He was from Wittenberg, and had been educated in strict Jewish fashion.  From his childhood he had read Hebrew, but was not much of a scholar otherwise.  A young person of his race lost caste utterly by marrying a Christian.  The Founder of our religion was considered by the Israelites to have been “a right smart man and a great doctor.”  But the horror with which the reading of the New Testament by any young person of their faith would be regarded was as great, I judged by his language, as that of one of our straitest sectaries would be, if he found his son or daughter perusing the “Age of Reason.”

In approaching Frederick, the singular beauty of its clustered spires struck me very much, so that I was not surprised to find “Fair-View” laid down about this point on a railroad map.  I wish some wandering photographer would take a picture of the place, a stereoscopic one, if possible, to show how gracefully, how charmingly, its group of steeples nestles among the Maryland hills.  The town had a poetical look from a distance, as if seers and dreamers might dwell there.  The first sign I read, on entering its long street, might perhaps be considered as confirming my remote impression.  It bore these words:  “Miss Ogle, Past, Present, and Future.”  On arriving, I visited Lieutenant Abbott, and the attenuated unhappy gentleman, his neighbor, sharing between them as my parting gift what I had left of the balsam known to the Pharmacopoeia as Spiritus Vini Gallici.  I took advantage of General Shriver’s always open door to write a letter home, but had not time to partake of his offered hospitality.  The railroad bridge over the Monocacy had been rebuilt since I passed through Frederick, and we trundled along over the track toward Baltimore.

It was a disappointment, on reaching the Eutaw House, where I had ordered all communications to be addressed, to find no telegraphic message from Philadelphia or Boston, stating that Captain H. had arrived at the former place, “wound doing well in good spirits expects to leave soon for Boston.”  After all, it was no great matter; the Captain was, no doubt, snugly lodged before this in the house called Beautiful, at * * * * Walnut Street, where that “grave and beautiful damsel named Discretion” had already welcomed him, smiling, though “the water stood in her eyes,” and had “called out Prudence, Piety, and Charity, who, after a little more discourse with him, had him into the family.”