But they said they wished me to be present.

Sarah thought there was something well omened in my meeting with Reverdy in Chicago, and in the fate that had brought me to her house, and she wished to fulfill the happy auspices to the end by having me for the chief guest at the wedding.

But how had I come to this household?
The stranger who had helped me on the boat at Bath had turned me over to a young man named Douglas who had brought me here, because of the poor comforts at the inn of Jacksonville.

Douglas had been here but a few months himself, having come from the state of Vermont.

He, too, had been ill of the same disease; had been confined under wretched circumstances at Cleveland on his way west; had nearly died.