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accommodating at this present a family of seventeen souls.
In front, the beautiful, grand St. John's stretches five miles from shore to shore, and we watch the steamboats plying back and forth to the great world we are out of. On all sides, large orange trees, with their dense shade and ever-vivid green, shut out the sun so that we can sit, and walk, and live in the open air. Our winter here is only cool, bracing out-door weather, without snow.
No month without flowers blooming in the open air, and lettuce and peas in the garden.
The summer range is about 90°, but the sea-breezes keep the air delightfully fresh.
Generally we go North, however, for three months of summer.
Well, I did not mean to run on about Florida, but the subject runs away with me, and I want you to visit us in spirit if not personally.
My poor rabbi!--he sends you some Arabic, which I fear you cannot read: on diablerie he is up to his ears in knowledge, having read all things in all tongues, from the Talmud down ....
Ever lovingly yours, H. B. Stowe.
Boston, September 26, 1872.
My dear friend,--I think when you see my name again so soon, you will think it rains, hails, and snows notes from this quarter.
Just now, however, I am in this lovely, little nest in Boston, where dear Mrs. Field, like a dove, “sits brooding on the charmed wave.”
We are both wishing we had you here with us, and she has not received any answer from you as yet in reply to the invitation you spoke of in your last letter to me. It seems as if you must have written, and the letter 