Of course, you want to know how I got along on the long voyage over.  I wrote you a few lines from Gibraltar telling you a little about that.  I wasn’t seasick a single bit.  I think it must be in our blood, this being able to keep well and happy on salt water.  Our family has always been to sea, as far back as my great-great-grandfather, at least, and I suppose that explains why, as soon as I stepped aboard the steamer, I felt as if I was where I belonged.  And Galusha, of course, has traveled so much that he is a good sailor, too.  So, no matter whether it was calm or blowy, he and I walked decks or sat in the lee somewhere and talked of all that had happened and of what was going to happen.  And, Lulie, I realized over and over, as I have been realizing ever since I agreed to marry him, what a wonderful man he is and what a happy and grateful woman I ought to be—­and am, you may be sure of that.  Every day I make a little vow to myself that I will do my best not to make him ashamed of me.  Of course, no matter what I did he would think it all right, but I mean to prevent other people from being ashamed for him.  That is, if I can, but I have so much to learn.

You should see how he is treated over here, by the very finest people, I mean.  It seems to me that every scientist or explorer or professor of this or that from China to London has been running after him, all those that happen to be in this part of the world, I mean.  And always he is just the same quiet, soft-spoken, gentle person he was at the Cape, but it is plain to see that when it comes to matters about his particular profession, my husband is known and respected everywhere.  Perhaps you will think, Lulie, that I am showing off a little when I write “my husband” like that.  Well, I shouldn’t wonder if I was.  Nobody could help being proud of him.

I had a trial the other evening.  That is, it seemed as if it would be the greatest trial that ever I had to face and my, how I dreaded it.  Sir Ernest Brindlecombe, an English scientist, and, so Galusha says, a very great man, indeed, is here with his wife, and they have known Galusha for years.  So nothing would do but we must come to their house to dinner.  He is in the English government service and they have a wonderful home, more like a palace than a house—­ that is, what I have always supposed a palace must be like.  I felt as if I couldn’t go, but Galusha had accepted already, so what was there to do?

Of course, you are wondering what I wore.  Well, as I wrote you from Washington, I had bought a lot of new things.  The wife of Professor Lounsbury, at the Institute, helped me pick them out, and oh, what should I have done without her!  Galusha, of course, would have rigged me up like the Queen of Sheba, if he had had his way.  I tried going shopping with him at first, but I had to give it up.  Every pretty dress he saw, no matter if it was about as fitting for my age and weight as a pink lace cap would be for a cow, he wanted to buy it right off.  If the price was high enough, that seemed to be the only thing that counted in his mind.  I may as well say right here, Lulie, that I have learned by this time, when he and I do go shopping together, to carry the pocketbook myself.  In that way we can manage to bring home something, even if it is only enough to buy a postage stamp.