Unofficial letters of an official's wife [by] Edith Moses.

UNOFFICIAL LETTERS OF

soldiers and all the adjuncts of a military reception.
Their only comment on the affair was, " hot." It is
now nearly ten o'clock in the evening. The stars
seem larger in America, but the Southern Cross
is not as wonderful as poets and romancers make it.
Looking toward the land the lights twinkle along
shore and on the Luneta, which " our oldest inhabitant," as we call Mr. Worcester, has just pointed
out to us. To-morrow we shall go on shore to
select the houses available for our use.
June 4, I900.
5W E have spent the day in town engaged in the
tiring but interesting occupation of selecting
"suitable houses," and I think it is the general
feeling on board the Hancock to-night that there
are not any answering to that description. The
high military officers already occupy the best available houses in town, and those not occupied leave
very little room for choice. They were certainly
not the palaces report and our, imagination had
pictured them. The one Judge Taft will probably
take looks forlorn enough now with the magenta
wall paper detached from the ceiling, a dry, unkempt lawn in front, and only three bedrooms on
the main floor. Spaniards, you know, sleep in family bedrooms. Don't you remember the father,
mother, and six children who all occupied the same
room in the City of Mexico? One of these bed4