Хорошие жёны / Good wives. Уровень 3

It’s not a fashionable place, but Uncle stopped here years ago, and won’t go anywhere else. However, we don’t intend to stay long. Oh, I can’t begin to tell you how I enjoy it all! I never can.

I sent a line from Halifax, when I felt pretty miserable, but after that I got on delightfully, seldom ill, on deck all day, with plenty of pleasant people to amuse me. Everyone was very kind to me, especially the officers. Don’t laugh, Jo, gentlemen are really necessary on the ship.

Aunt and Flo were ill all the way, and liked to be let alone.

So I went and enjoyed myself. Such walks on deck, such sunsets, such splendid air and waves! It was almost as exciting as riding a fast horse, when we went rushing on so grandly.

It was all heavenly, but I was glad to see the Irish coast, and found it very lovely, so green and sunny, with brown cabins here and there, ruins on some of the hills, and gentlemen’s countryseats in the valleys, with deer feeding in the parks. It was early in the morning, but I didn’t regret getting up to see it.

The bay was full of little boats, the shore so picturesque, and a rosy sky overhead. I shall never forget it.

At Queenstown one of my new acquaintances left us, Mr. Lennox, and when I said something about the Lakes of Killarney, he sighed, and sung, with a look at me,

“Oh, have you ever heard of Kate Kearney?

She lives on the banks of Killarney;

From the glance of her eye,

Shun danger and fly,

For fatal is the glance of Kate Kearney.

”

Wasn’t that nonsensical?

We only stopped at Liverpool a few hours. It’s a dirty, noisy place, and I was glad to leave it. Uncle rushed out and bought a pair of dogskin gloves[20 - dogskin gloves – лайковые перчатки], some ugly, thick shoes, and an umbrella. I like traveling.

I shall never get to London if I don’t hurry. The trip was riding through a long picture gallery, full of lovely landscapes. The farmhouses were my delight, with thatched roofs, ivy up to the eaves, latticed windows, and stout women with rosy children at the doors.

The grass is so green, sky so blue, grain so yellow, woods so dark!

Of course it rained when we got to London, and there was nothing to be seen but fog and umbrellas. We rested, unpacked, and shopped a little between the showers. Aunt Mary got me some new things. A white hat and blue feather, a muslin dress, and the loveliest mantle you ever saw.