What, I
wondered, was her secret? What was really her fate?
This latter question troubled me until I could bear it no longer. I felt
that it was my duty to go to Finland and endeavor to learn something
regarding this Baron Oberg and his niece. Frank Hutcheson had written me
declaring that the weather in Leghorn was now perfect, and expressing
wonder that I did not return. I was his only English friend, and I knew
how dull he was when alone. Even his Majesty's Consuls sometimes suffer
from homesickness, and long for the smell of the London gutters and a
glass of homely bitter ale.
But you, my reader, who have lived in a foreign land for any length of
time, know well how wearisome becomes the life, however brilliant, and
how sweet are the recollections of our dear gray old England with her
green fields, her muddy lanes, and the bustling streets of her gray,
grimy cities. You have but one "home," and England Is still your home,
even though you may become the most bigoted of cosmopolitans and may
have no opportunity of speaking your native tongue the whole year
through.
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