When hot weather arrived, Edward decided to allow himself a short vacation, —an indulgence which the exactions of business had hitherto prohibited every year since his marriage. As to where the precious time should be spent there was but one opinion in the Lindsay household: they would go East and rent a little cottage on the sea-shore at Marant, where they had passed several summers as children, and where the salt air would do much for Little John's development, as it had done for their own not so very many years ago. Edward wrote to one of his correspondents at Boston, requesting him to secure suitable quarters; and, when June was a fortnight old, they moved into a comfortable cottage at Marant, after a flying trip without incident from St. Louis.

Little John fell in love with the sea at first sight, and his constancy never wavered so long as he remained at Marant. He was at his happiest when his perambulator was pushed to the edge of the water so that the waves flowed about the wheels. In such a position he would remain perfectly content for hours, usually in silence, but at times softly soliloquizing or addressing the waves in earnest but incomprehensible baby-language. In the mean time, Mrs. Doly, seated in a camp-chair behind, could devote an almost uninterrupted attention to her knitting, rising only at intervals to see that the carriage occupied a proper position with respect to the movements of the tide, while Ellen reclined in idleness upon the sand. To so great an extent was her office a sinecure that once, when the water was very calm, Mrs. Doly fell asleep in the warm sun, during Ellen's temporary absence, and awoke as the water wetted her toes to find Little John completely surrounded and pretty nearly in his element literally. Far from being alarmed, however, he was in a state of exalted bliss, and emphatically protested against being removed to a more secure position. But when the tide was going out he was not so content to remain in statu quo, and, partly rising to his feet, would indicate by most forcible remarks and gesticulations that he wished to be moved farther down the beach. He manifested an ardent desire to accompany Edward on his rowing expeditions, whenever he witnessed the start; but Ellen would not consent to this, and Little John was never initiated into the charms of boating.

It was not long before Ellen's fears were aroused that her boy might grow up with nautical tastes.

"Ought we to permit him to become so infatuated?" she asked Edward.

"Why, what can we do?" he returned.

"We can give up Marant and spend the rest of your vacation at the mountains."

"That would be useless, dear, granting that Little John has been born with a taste for the sea. You can't eradicate an inborn proclivity."

"But, Edward, you surely do not wish—would not permit Little John to go to sea?"

"I should never attempt to prevent him from doing so if he wished to. A born sailor can't make a good lawyer, or a doctor, or anything else,—at least until he has satiated himself with the sea. All the evidence of history shows that, you know. Of course we both hope that Little John will not develop a sailor's taste, and I don't think there is any reason to fear that he will: all babies are fond of the sea."

"Yes, Edward; but," tremulously, "you know Dr. Kreiss said his father was in a shipping business."

"Very true: some sort of a broker or agent, probably. They never go to sea; and it isn't to be expected that the child inherits any taste for it from him. Still, we mustn't forget, Ellen, that none of our wishes are perfectly sure to be realized. We will do our best to further them, but, after all, you know, Dieu dispose"

Ellen had never brought herself fully to realize the application of this trite saying to the case of Little John, but she now went away to her room and thought the whole question through. She saw all at once the long series of temptations to which he must be subjected before he became a man. Yes, it was possible that this sweet child might grow up to disappoint her bitterly, to be far worse than an honest sailor,—a useless idler, or even a criminal. She shuddered at the very thought of the last, and with a great leaping of the heart she resolved that, if God should see fit to spare the child, her own life should be devoted to shaping his. She would forget herself entirely; her little ambitious projects should be wholly thrown aside, that no effort might be spared for the accomplishment of her one great duty. Tenderness and sympathy and example should do their utmost, but she would not spoil her boy: there should be sternness if it were needed; and she felt that this would try her devotion most of all.

Life at Marant thoroughly agreed with Little John. Every day left upon him its mark of development and improvement. Other babies in the neighborhood suffered more or less from "prickly heat," whooping-cough, and cholera morbus, and ailed upon the advent of teeth. Not so Little John. He seemed proof against everything. One day Ellen was called from the beach to attend to some detail of housekeeping, and upon her return was horrified to find the child playing with some poison ivy, which Mrs. Doly, in metropolitan ignorance of its qualities, had gathered from the adjacent bluff. He had rubbed it all over his face and crushed it between his hands, and was in the act of stuffing some of it down the back of his neck. With her gloved hands Ellen snatched the leaves away, upbraided poor Mrs. Doly, subjected Little John to violent ablution, and then sat down to await disaster. But it never came. The only inconvenience Little John ever experienced from the incident was the loss of a certain degree of liberty; for thence-forth Ellen would not suffer him to be separated from her for an instant. Mrs. Doly, however, did not escape so easily. The noxious Rhus produced its most evil effects upon her face and hands, and for a week she led a life of physical torture enhanced by humiliation of spirit. Upon another occasion a neighbor's child dropped a small marble in front of Little John, who unhesitatingly picked it up, put it into his mouth, and swallowed it before anybody could interfere. Again was Ellen aroused to the highest degree of alarm; but this time, expecting nothing less than speedy death for the unfortunate baby, she despatched the entire household in search of a physician. None was to be found at Marant, the sole local practitioner having gone to Boston for the day. With great presence of mind, Ellen then instituted a course of treatment herself, up to the successful termination of which Little John maintained his usual excellent spirits.

He was backward both in walking and in talking. Twenty months had passed over his curly head before he could fairly stand alone; and then his vocabulary was much more limited than is usual with children of that age. But Edward construed this into a favorable sign. "Your precocious children rarely amount to anything," he said. "They wear themselves out before they come to the real work of life. I should really feel disappointed if Little John should grow up a model school-boy. He would be sure to develop into a pedagogue, or a book-worm, or something of the sort. Thanks to Providence, he promises better."

His foster-parents rarely thought of him as an adopted child, so effectually had he possessed himself of their love. From time to time, however, in some moment of enthusiasm, Edward would declare that the more he thought about it the more he was led to believe that it was better to have found Little John than to have had a child of their own. "You see, Ellen," he would say, "we both have an active, nervous temperament. A child would be very apt to inherit this in an exaggerated degree, and consequently to lead a life unhappy in itself, besides causing us a great deal of sorrow and disappointment. But what a wonderful reserve of nerve-force Little John has! Whether he turns out a judge, an artist, or a sailor, it will count for more than his physique, and that is priceless." And then Ellen would smile contentedly. In those days the Lindsays were very happy indeed.

The charms of Marant are well known, and it is not surprising that the Lindsays should have protracted their stay to the utmost, and that autumn should have arrived before they turned their faces westward. Doubtless Little John would have strongly protested against quitting the sea-side, had he been aware that he was about to do so. For several days after returning to St. Louis he was certainly almost inconsolable. He begged constantly, in his peculiar, abbreviated language, for the beach and the ocean, with especial earnestness whenever he was taken for a promenade in his perambulator. But in time, of course, the grand impression faded from his memory,—to the secret delight of Ellen, who had never become quite reconciled to his adoration of the sea.

As the child acquired words and accomplishments, he lost nothing of his sweetness and strangely mature dignity. When the tan disappeared from his cheeks, he looked a little less robust; but this was to have been expected. Such confidence had the Lindsays in the invulnerability of his constitution that they were not alarmed when he experienced his inevitable first indisposition of a serious character. Mrs. Doly and Ellen agreed that it was a natural consequence of the change in his diet and mode of life since they had come back to the city, and Dr. Kreiss, who was at once summoned, substantiated the theory. But the next day Little John was no better, and at night so decidedly worse that Edward sent for the doctor again. The man of medicine looked grave this time. He stayed with the little sufferer for several hours. Before midnight he came once more; and when he went away Little John was dead.

The blow fell upon the Lindsays with the more crushing force from its terrible suddenness. Among all the contingencies to which they had looked forward they had never seriously considered the possibility of this. They had prepared themselves for disappointment, but not for bereavement. For the first time they realized how thoroughly their adopted child had become a part of their life. Hours that had been the brightest in the day now dragged along wearisomely, and they often sat in silence together, because they knew that if they spoke at all It must be of Little John. After a time they saw, as many young parents have seen after their first great loss, that the world could never be quite the old world to them again. But they felt their love for each other to be all the stronger, and they tried hard to lighten each other's sorrow by being cheerful and brave. It was saddest, of course, for Ellen. All day she was alone in the house, and, though she might busy her hands over a watercolor or an etching, her thoughts would often stray away and send the tears to her eyes. Occasionally she yielded to impulse and paid furtive visits to the nursery, where, with a little dress or some other memento of her lost child laid upon her knees, she would sit in long revery. By and by Edward noticed that her face had taken upon itself a constant expression of sadness, which even her smiles could not disguise. He began to think about a European tour. From girlhood Ellen had looked forward to spending a year in study abroad, and it seemed to him that no time could be better than the present. It would be hard to leave his business; he could not do so before spring anyway; but everything should be sacrificed to Ellen's happiness, and, with her assent, he resolved, they should go at that season. Just now his business was unusually exacting. He became every day more alive to the fact that, unless he chose to lose a valuable portion of his client?, he must spend a few weeks in the Southwest. Many St. Louis capitalists were anxious to buy land in Texas at this unparalleled period of her prosperity, and many commissions as well as opportunities for private investment in the State demanded his attention at once. But could he and ought he to leave Ellen now? He could not decide. When he was at home he refused to consider the question at all; but at his office it constantly forced itself upon his attention. Finally, after a great deal of exasperatingly unsatisfactory correspondence with agents in Austin and Galveston, he went to Ellen.

"I will give the whole thing up, if you say so," he declared.

"But you think it very necessary for you to go?" she asked.

"From a business point of view, absolutely necessary. It is a question of improving or failing to improve a chance to make a good many thousand dollars. There is no middle course: I can't send anybody who could do the business for me. Still, if you are as unwilling to have me go as I am to leave you, I shall stay at home."

This was hardly fair, and Ellen was sorely tempted; but she was too brave and too true to yield to what she believed a selfish impulse. She wound her arms about her husband's neck and effectively testified her reluctance to permit the separation. She declared, however, that she would not countenance his staying at home,—that it was plainly his duty to go. She begged only that he would return at the earliest moment he could do so conscientiously. He earnestly assured her that she need have no doubt of that, and that a word from her would bring him home at any time.

"But if I am to go," he continued, "you must have somebody to stay with you while I am away. Why not ask Bertha Terry? You used to be always out sketching together, and I know she would be delighted to come."

"Bertha is a lovely girl, but—I—"

She paused, with trembling lips.

"But what, Ellen? Of course I wish you to have whomever you may prefer."

To his surprise and concern, his wife burst into a flood of tears.

"Ellen," he said very tenderly, "I am afraid you are not well. If this is so, I certainly cannot leave you."

"Oh, no! oh, no!" she cried between her sobs. "It is only because I shall miss you so,—and because I have tried not to cry for so long that I must now,—and because—because I have a terrible feeling that I may never see you again."

Edward permitted her tears to exhaust themselves to some extent before he spoke. Then with gentleness and tact he introduced the subject of the European tour, upon which, he said, they might start very soon if the trip to Texas should be brought to a successful close. He alluded to the priceless art-treasures which they would examine together, and which she would reproduce. He dwelt upon the glories of the Alps, the charms of Italy, the wonders of Paris, with such good effect that Ellen presently dried her eyes and found her smiles again.

A few days later, on a raw October evening, Edward yielded to the urgent demands of his business and set out for the South. It was at the time when the "boom" in the grazing-lands and real estate generally of Texas was at its height. Railways were pushing out in all directions, opening new and profitable fields for investment, and immigrants were pouring into the State in unexampled numbers. It was a period rich in opportunities that could never come again. Edward set to work to make the most of them. In the first place, he carefully attended to his commissions, resolutely repelling the swarm of speculators who hovered about every man supposed to possess a little capital, but all the time watchful and reflecting. Then he began to make investments for himself. He bought, sold, and bought again, until his funds were exhausted, and after that he wrote to St. Louis and borrowed money. He was constantly on the move, much of the time in camp, making and saving many a dollar by acting as his own agent. The only respite he allowed himself was the time devoted to correspondence with his wife. He sent her minute accounts of his work, and received long and loving letters in return. But time passed, like the Northers themselves. Four, five, six weeks were gone almost before he had counted them, extending his absence decidedly beyond the date he had originally set for his return, and still there was much to be done. He had not borne the separation from his wife without pain, and he looked forward to prolonging it with much more than reluctance; but he felt that to leave now would be to spurn the hand of Providence, the more so because, though Ellen had many times anxiously inquired for the date of his return, she had never failed, whenever she wrote, to assure him of her own content so long as he was successful and happy. He therefore sent her an elaborate statement of the situation, reiterated his readiness to return if she desired it, and begged her to decide for him whether he should remain longer or not. Why could she not come down and spend a few weeks at Waco? he asked. She would find pleasant people there, and he could then see her at least once in a while. He would go back to St. Louis to bring her down. In any event, he said, he would run up and spend a day or two with her if his stay were to be prolonged. She wrote in reply that she dreaded to experience the wild life he had so graphically described, and that she could not persuade herself to go down into that primitive country unless she might be with him always. This she knew to be impossible; and she was convinced also that her presence at any time would prove a hinderance to him in his business. But if he could come home for a short visit it would make her very happy. She hoped that he might come very soon indeed. Still, she added, with her old bravery, he must make no sacrifice to gratify her wishes. She trusted him implicitly; she knew that he was as impatient to return as she was that he should do so. He must stay as long as he deemed it best; and even his proposed visit must be given up, if need be.

And so Edward stayed. The visit to St. Louis was postponed once or twice, and then put off indefinitely. New commissions were intrusted to him, new opportunities disclosed themselves, new schemes were projected. He extended his field of work into remote sections of the State, and once made his way as far as the valley of the Rio Grande. Even in his busiest moments Ellen was never wholly absent from his thoughts, and he never ended a day without the reflection that his return was so much the nearer. But week followed week into the past, the holidays slipped by, and spring itself overtook him before he could see any definite prospect of getting away. At last, one morning early in March, he wrote to Ellen from Denison that he should be at home before the end of a week. The letter had hardly been mailed when he received one from his wife evincing a depression she had never permitted herself to acknowledge before. She wrote briefly, and, with vague allusions to her health and an avowal of what she called her "lack of firmness," besought him to return.

The indefiniteness of this letter troubled Edward. He was disposed to think that it meant much more than it expressed. He knew his wife's excellent constitution so well, and reposed so much trust in her frankness, that he did not believe she was seriously ill; but he did fear that his prolonged absence had tried her cruelly, for he realized that she must have gone through with many a struggle before she could have brought herself to recall him. While he was debating, still under the spell of business, whether to start for home at once or first to settle some important matters at Denison, a telegraph-boy entered the office of the hotel where he was sitting, and handed a despatch to the clerk.

"For the gentleman at the window," said the young man.

Edward opened the missive with the calmness of an honest and solvent man, but with a pang of fear for Ellen. He read as follows:

"We think you had better return at once. BERTHA TERRY."

For an instant he sat with his brain in a whirl. Then a curse upon Providence rose to his lips; he repressed it, and began to load himself with reproaches. A moment before, he had been in the satisfied mood of a man who has his own approbation for work well done. He now looked upon his course during the past winter with both abhorrence and wonder. He told himself that it was heartless to have left Ellen at all; to have stayed away for so many months was simply inhuman. It was all plain enough now; and that he should have been so blind to the truth he could not conceive. Suddenly he bethought himself that there was yet time to catch the Austin Express for St. Louis, and that if he did not succeed in doing this a whole day would be lost. He quickly wrote and forwarded a despatch to Bertha, requesting her to telegraph to him at Vinita without reserve, and then, regardless of his unfulfilled engagements, hurried to the station. He was just in season: as he stepped upon the platform he heard the whistle of the approaching train. Once on board, he experienced a momentary sensation of relief: he was rapidly moving homeward, and at Vinita he would at least be freed from suspense. He tried to convince himself that the case could not be a serious one. But if it was? A terrible fear took possession of him. He attempted in vain to put it aside. It rendered it impossible for him to sit down alone with his thoughts for a moment, and he passed away the day in wandering back and forth through the cars, making an effort now and then to get up a conversation with some fellow-passenger, counting the hours before the train would reach Vinita, and constantly execrating himself.

But, Vinita reached, there was no telegram. The operator thought it must have gone to Vineton, a town far to the southeast, on the Iron Mountain Railway. He could telegraph for it, of course, he said, and send it on to any given point, but he believed that Edward would get word more quickly by forwarding another message to St. Louis. He suggested that the reply be sent to Sedalia, where it would undoubtedly be delivered, even at the late hour at which the train would arrive.

Edward listened to these remarks in dull despair. It was true that he might receive news from Ellen at Sedalia, but Sedalia would not be reached before the small hours of the following morning, when his journey would be practically ended. Nor was there any nearer town, large enough to support a night telegraph-office, where he could expect a message to be received in season to reach him. He thanked the operator for his suggestions, and returned sorrowfully to the train, to pass a night of suffering, from which his short snatches of sleep gave him little relief. Poor fellow! His sadness and remorse were cruelly enhanced by the suspense he was called upon to endure. He vowed many times to himself that, if Ellen were spared until his return, no pressure of the world should ever separate him from her again. When the sun began to make known its coming in the east, he breathed a prayer of thanks that his agony of waiting was almost over.

Toward the middle of the forenoon the train rolled into the Union Depot at St. Louis. Edward stood upon the platform of the foremost car. Long before it came to a stop, he leaped from the steps and ran along toward the hackmen's stand. A babel of voices greeted him. Quickly selecting a man whose face was familiar, he pressed a douceur into his hand, and, in a voice that broke in spite of his efforts to control it, asked to be driven home immediately and as fast as possible. The hackman looked upon Edward's haggard face with silent sympathy, divining, perhaps, something of the truth, and hastily led the way to his vehicle.

The train was hardly at a stand-still when the carriage rattled away from the station. The driver plied his whip freely, and soon left the business section of the city behind. As they sped along Washington Avenue, Edward endeavored to prepare himself for the worst, but he was incapable of calmness and reflection: his whole being rebelled against the supposition that he might be too late.

There was a carriage, which he recognized as Dr. Kreiss's, drawn up before his house. Fairly unmanned by emotion, he sprang up the steps, threw open the door, and met the doctor face to face.

The physician maintained a professional composure.

"Good-morning, Mr. Lindsay," he said. "I regret to say that you have not arrived quite soon enough."

"Great God, doctor! Is it possible?" faltered Edward, whilst the tears sprang to his eyes.

The doctor looked at him curiously.

"Go up-stairs and see your wife and baby," he said, with considerate brevity. He added to himself, as Edward vanished up the stairway, "A case of special providence that it's a boy."

NATHAN CLIFFORD BROWN.

* * * * *



JOSEPH J. MICKLEY.

Not many years ago there were several substantial old houses standing on the north side of Market Street, east of Tenth, in the city of Philadelphia. These structures, which then wore an air of respectable old age, have been in recent years either totally destroyed or so extensively altered that the serene atmosphere of antiquated gentility no longer lingers about their busy exteriors.

On a morning in April, 1869, the present writer had occasion to call at one of these buildings,—No. 927. Several broad and weather-stained marble steps led up to an old-fashioned doorway, where the modern bell-pull and the antique brass knocker contended for recognition. Alike rusty as these were, it became a problem as to which would best secure communication with the interior. While the matter still seemed indefinite, it was set at rest by the advice of an obliging street-urchin, who volunteered his information with appropriate brevity and directness:

"Try the door. If it's loose, Daddy Mickley's home, sure. If it's locked, 'taint no use of knockin', for he's out."

Thus instructed, I tried the door. It happened to be "loose," and ushered me into a long dark entry, at the farther end of which a wide flight of heavy oak stairs led to the upper rooms in the rear of the building. Among these rooms, one of the first to be reached was evidently a workshop; and here was encountered the only living being as yet visible in the spacious old mansion. Upon entering, I was met by a dignified and placid old gentleman, whose appearance was very much in keeping with the house in which he dwelt. He was quite evidently of the old school, and his pleasant voice gave me an old-school welcome. A fine broad forehead rested above a pair of the most kindly eyes that can be imagined, and belonged to a splendidly-shaped head, which was totally bald, save for a slight fringe of white hairs about either temple. The mouth was, in its expression, even more prepossessing than the eyes, and the whole bearing of the old gentleman—who had evidently reached his three-score and ten, but who, as was equally apparent, carried the warmth and vigor of youth still with him—was calculated to please and impress the least observant visitor.

The late Joseph J. Mickley comprised qualities at once more attractive and more unusual than are often met with in one person. He was distinguished throughout the world, during more than a generation, for the diligence and success of his numismatic researches, and his collection of rare coins was for a long time the most valuable in this country. As a collector of scarce books and autographs he was hardly less noted or less successful. But in Philadelphia he was most of all admired for his delightful social qualities and his extensive information on a surprising variety of topics. During forty years his house was a rendezvous for a numerous group of specialists,—not alone in his own favorite pursuits, which, indeed, were both many and diverse, but in any and every department of art or learning. Coin-hunters, autograph-dealers, historical students, philosophers, musical-instrument-makers, noted performers, and performers of less note, all the way down to "scratch-clubs," were his constant visitors for years. It is probable that no private house in Philadelphia has entertained a greater number of intellectually distinguished people than the old mansion just referred to, where Mickley resided from 1842 to 1869. Musical celebrities from every country hastened to make his acquaintance, and such was the magnetism of his personality that acquaintances thus formed seem never to have been lost sight of by either host or guest. During his European tour, which lasted from 1869 to 1872, the then venerable traveller was continually meeting friends among persons who had called upon him at various times, dating back in one case as long before as 1820. They always appeared to have known beforehand of his coming, and he always remembered them and the circumstances under which he had first met them.

The social reunions at Mickley's were informal to the last degree, and the accommodations correspondingly primitive. They usually took place in his workshop. Crazy stools or empty piano-boxes generally served for seats. The surrounding furniture comprised barrels, cases, and chests, filled to overflowing with the host's ever-increasing antiquarian treasures. If a quartette were assembled,—and many times the musical party was enlarged to a quintette or a septette,—an adjournment was necessary to a room less crowded, but equally sparse of conventional furniture.

Mr. Mickley was always happy to join in these impromptu musical assemblies, when occasion offered, although performing music was one of the few things which he never succeeded in doing well. He invariably played the viola on these occasions,—perhaps, as Schindler hints about Beethoven, because indifferent playing on the viola is not so noticeable as on other instruments. As was to have been expected from so pronounced an antiquarian, he had small sympathy for modern music. He even rebelled against the gentle innovations of Mendelssohn, contending, not without an approach to accurate judgment, that Haydn and Mozart had completely covered the field of chamber-music. While in the midst of numerous and always congenial pursuits during his long life, quartette-playing remained a favorite pastime of very many days in very many years.

Mr. Mickley's intellect was so many-sided and so evenly balanced that it is difficult to name his predominant bias. It is very nearly safe, however, to say that this was his historic faculty. In the writings, still chiefly unprinted, which were left behind him, he was at once the most minute and the most compact of historians. Emerson never condensed his rare thoughts into smaller compass, not even in his "English Traits," than Mr, Mickley has condensed his facts and observations. There is a small pamphlet extant, the manuscript of which was read by him in 1863 on the occasion of the centennial anniversary of a noted Indian massacre in Northampton County, Pennsylvania, where several of his ancestors perished. It contains historic material enough for a volume. To indicate his early passion for amassing reliable data, the same sketch shows that a portion of its facts had been obtained, while he was still a boy, from then aged eye-witnesses of the affair, nearly fifty years before its story was thus put into permanent shape.

He mastered the Swedish language, after having passed his seventieth year, chiefly that he might write a correct history of the first settlement of Swedes on the Delaware River below Philadelphia. At the age of seventy-two he spent several months in Stockholm, the capital of Sweden, and while there placed himself in communication with every prominent librarian of the country, besides scholars in Denmark, Holland, and Germany. He personally inspected a great mass of documents and ancient volumes. Yet the result of all this is contained in a manuscript of less than thirty large folio pages, literally crowded with invaluable data. This was read before the Historical Society of the State of Delaware in 1874. It has never been put in type, and is almost wholly made up of material which has no existence elsewhere in the English language.

A single instance will serve to show the minuteness and persistence of his investigations. In one of the public libraries of Stockholm Mickley discovered an ancient Dutch manuscript signed by Peter Minuit. No scholar within reach could master its contents. The private secretary of the ambassador from Holland, who was appealed to, asserted beforehand that he "could read anything that ever was written in Dutch." Yet, after a long inspection, he frankly owned his inability to decipher a single word of it. Mr. Mickley was determined to ascertain the contents. As the document could not be bought at any price, and could not even be removed over-night from its place of keeping, he caused photographs to be taken of it. One such copy was sent to a very learned acquaintance in Amsterdam, and another to a noted scholar at Leipsic. In the course of subsequent travels he found accurate translations awaiting him from both sources. The importance of the manuscript in this connection will be the more appreciated when it is remembered that Peter Minuit commanded the first expedition ever sent to the shores of the Delaware River.

Being thus by nature an historian, it is but natural that Mr. Mickley should have left behind him ample materials for telling the story of his own life. From these we learn that the family name was originally Michelet. It dates back to the French Huguenots who, after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, settled in Zweibrcken, a Grerman province. The first foothold of the family in this country was established in that portion of Pennsylvania which has for more than a century been thickly peopled by that enlightened and art-fostering sect, the Moravians. It was from the Moravian influence that Joseph J. Mickley first experienced a fondness for music and its appropriate artistic surroundings. He was born March 24, 1799, at South Whitehall, a township then in Lehigh County, but originally comprised in Northampton. At the age of seventeen he went to Philadelphia as apprentice to a piano-maker. At that time the method of building a piano-forte was as different from the advanced art of these days as was the instrument itself. The piano-maker had then to work from the legs upward. His necessary duties demanded knowledge which is now distributed among several entirely distinct sets of artificers. That young Mickley satisfactorily completed his apprenticeship may be inferred from two facts: he started in business for himself in August, 1822, and in October, 1831, the Franklin Institute awarded him a prize for skill in the manufacture of pianos.

From this time on, his business life, though of long duration, was uneventful, and may be summed up in very few words. From his original starting-place at No. 67 North Third Street, he removed, four years later, to a store on the site now occupied by a portion of the publishing house of J.B. Lippincott Company. Here he remained until 1842, and then established himself in the building mentioned at the beginning of this article, where he continued to live until the final closing up of his business in 1869.

It does not appear that Mr. Mickley was ever actively engaged in the manufacture of piano-fortes. He continued, however, to tune pianos to the end of his life; and it is reported that he could never be induced to alter his terms from the original fee of one dollar which was customary forty years ago. He also became noted far and wide as a repairer of violins and other stringed instruments. At one time, a violin which had belonged to George Washington was sent to him for this purpose. Ole Bull, who happened to be in town at the time, hearing of the circumstance, hastened to the shop for the purpose of examining and playing upon the historic instrument. Mickley also became an authority in regard to the value and authenticity of these instruments, although he never indulged in the passion of making collections in this field. His minuteness of observation was frequently manifested. While stopping at Venice in 1870 he notes down in his diary, "A man came to the hotel with some violins for sale. Among them was a Hieronymus Amati. It was a good one, but the head and neck were not genuine." At another time, a violin was sent to his place from a distant locality for repairs. The instrument was preceded by a lengthy letter beseeching his special care for its welfare, and setting forth in extravagant terms its great intrinsic value and its peculiarly interesting "belongings." Anticipating a treasure, Mr. Mickley sent for some violin-connoisseurs to enjoy with him a first sight of the precious instrument. On opening the express-package a very worthless "fiddle" was revealed. After the laugh had gone round, he said dryly, "I think the value of this must be in its 'belongings.'"

In the old house on Market Street Mr. Mickley was not alone popular among prominent people from afar. He was equally loved by his neighbors on all sides. Many of the more unconventional of these knew him best by the familiar title of "Daddy." To the better-educated class of young musicians he was almost as much a father as a friend. Nor were his close friendships confined to the young. Among his most steadfast admirers was an old-bachelor German musician by the name of Plich. Herr Plich was a piano-teacher, and it was under his tuition that the afterward favorite prima-donna Caroline Richings made her first public appearance as a pianist in 1847. This old teacher induced Mickley to take him as a boarder, and he lived for a number of years in one of the upper back rooms of No. 927. One night a fire broke out in a building directly contiguous with the rear of the Mickley mansion. There was great consternation, of course, and busy efforts on the owner's part to gather together the manifold contents of his treasure-house. When all had been at length secured in a place of safety, he bethought himself of Herr Plich. Hastening to the upper room, he discovered the old man in a state of semi-insanity, marching up and down the apartment, and carrying in his hands only a valuable viola. So confused was he with fright that main force was required to get him out of the room. After seeing him safely out of the front door, Mickley went back and secured a considerable sum of paper money which had been totally overlooked for the sake of the beloved viola. Plich at his death bequeathed the viola to Mickley, and it was the only instrument which the latter always refused to part with during his lifetime. The entire savings of Plich were also left in trust to Mickley, to be distributed for such charitable objects as he should consider most worthy, and for about twenty-seven years Mr. Mickley carefully administered this trust.

Mr. Mickley's most remarkable success in life was obtained as a numismatist. His habit of collecting coins began almost in childhood. It has been stated that at the age of seventeen he first became interested in coin-hunting, owing to his difficulty in finding a copper cent coined in 1799, the year of his birth. Every student of numismatism knows that this piece is exceedingly rare. The one sold in Mr. Mickley's collection after his decease brought no less than forty dollars. The taste thus formed continued a prevailing one for sixty years. It is surprising to find how speedily he became a leading and recognized authority. Although as guileless as a child and the easy victim of numerous thefts throughout his life, he was scarcely ever deceived in the value of a coin, token, or medal. Once, at Stockholm, in 1871, he visited a museum where rare coins were exhibited. "The collection," says his diary, "is very, very rich in Greek and Roman, but particularly in Scandinavian and Anglo-Saxon. There are not many United States coins, but among them I was astonished to find a very fine half-eagle of 1815." The known rarity of this coin thus on exhibition in a far country very naturally attracted the keen eyes of the aged collector.

These researches, continuing year after year, grew to be more and more valuable, until they became widely celebrated. By the time he had reached middle age he was as well known among the guild of antiquarians as a Quaker is known by his costume. Before his death he had been elected a member of all the prominent societies in numismatics, history, and archaeology throughout the world. The last honor of this kind, which reached him in his eightieth year, was a notice of his election to membership in the Societe Francaise de Numismatique et d'Archeologie. His great collections in this department of knowledge were not confined to coins, but extended also to the literature of the subject. This was splendidly illustrated in his famous library, which comprised many works of the utmost value and scarcity.

A taste thus developed in early youth naturally became in the course of years a habit, a sentiment, a leading passion of Mickley's nature. By the year 1867 his coin-collection had become the most extensive in this country. By this time also the entertainment of curious visitors absorbed a good share of the collector's daily duties. He was naturally proud of his treasures, and took a great delight in showing them to all who came. Utterly devoid of suspicion, he was a ready victim to designing persons. The following memorandum, which was found among his later papers, will show how he suffered from this source:

"I have become rather indifferent about numismatics, or, at least, about collecting coins. It was a great source of amusement for a period of over fifty years. But, having been so unfortunate at different times with my coins, it is, as it were, a warning to desist from collecting any more. In the year 1827 the United States dollars from 1794 to 1803, all good specimens, together with some foreign coins, were stolen. In 1848 about twenty half-dollars were taken. In 1854, after showing my collection to three Southern gentlemen (as they called themselves) I missed three very scarce half-eagles. The great robbery was in 1867. In Jaffa, Palestine, a small lot, worth about one thousand francs, with a collection of Egyptian curiosities, was stolen at the hotel; and, finally, last winter, at Seville, Spain, some old Spanish coins were missing while I was showing them to some persons."

The "great robbery" above alluded to occurred on the evening of April 13, 1867. It was of such magnitude as to cause a wide sensation at the time, and enlisted the sympathies of his coin-hunting brethren the world over. Mr. Mickley's chief precautions, notwithstanding his previous warnings of danger from another source, had been against fire. In a third-story room was his cabinet. This had been long since filled, chiefly with an unbroken and historic list of American coins. The additional accumulations of years, nearly all foreign, and many of great rarity, had been stored in an old piano-case in his bedroom, where, as he said, in the event of fire they would be close at hand. On the evening in question Mickley was alone in his workshop, engaged in repairing a musical instrument. He had then been living entirely alone for a number of years. A single servant, who provided his meals, had gone home. About nine o'clock the loud barking of his dog in the yard below called him to the window. It was afterward found that a pair of old shoes thrown from an upper room by the burglars had thus called away the attention both of dog and master from what was going on inside. An hour later a caller discovered several pieces of money lying in the hall. An investigation disclosed the startling loss which he had sustained. The entire contents of the piano-box had been carried off. A private desk had also been broken open and despoiled of a few medals, although its chief contents were intact. A gold pencil, the gift of Ole Bull, and other keepsakes, remained undisturbed. But the larger portion of a collection of foreign coins, one of the most complete in the world, and the product of a lifetime's intelligent research, was gone!

It was a heavy calamity, and one from which the old collector never fully recovered. Sir Isaac Newton's historic Fido did not do nearly the amount of irremediable damage when he overturned the lamp upon his master's papers. The actual pecuniary loss, reckoning at cost prices, was in the neighborhood of nineteen thousand dollars. The market value of such a collection was of course vastly greater, and increasing all the time at a good deal faster rate than compound interest. It was somewhat of a coincidence that Mr. Mickley had received and refused what he records as a "tempting offer", for the entire collection only a short time before the robbery.

The ardent passion of a lifetime was now chilled, and his one desire seemed to be to get rid of his remaining coins and of the responsibility which keeping them entailed. Such, however, was the completeness of Mickley's literary methods of condensing, that an entry of three or four lines made in his diary on the night of the robbery is all that he had to write about the appalling loss. A week or two afterward he records in the same volume the disposal of all the remaining coins, with an air of great relief, as he adds, "I do not doubt I should be robbed again if I kept them." A large box full of the most valuable had been taken, for safe-keeping, to the Mint just after the robbery; but these were sold with the rest. It is understood that this remnant of the original lot was disposed of for about sixteen thousand dollars, the largest purchaser being Mr, Woodward, of Roxbury, Massachusetts. The dollar of 1804 went to a New York collector for the enormous sum of seven hundred and fifty dollars.

Efforts to restore the lost treasure were not wanting. It might be supposed that the possession of such rare tokens of value would have speedily led to the discovery of their whereabouts. Mr. Mickley himself intimated that he suspected the quarter from which the depredation had come. Yet from that day until the present the secret has been as securely kept as that of the rifling of Lord Byron's letter from a vase at Abbotsford, or of the Duchess of Devonshire's portrait from the London Art-Gallery. In fact, the same mild generosity which had always characterized Mr. Mickley still came uppermost in the face of this trying disaster. He frequently sought to overlook the misdoings of petty thieves. A London pickpocket who had successfully practised upon him Oliver Twist's little game was only prosecuted because his testimony was insisted upon by the authorities. At the foot of the Pyramids he deplored the chastisement inflicted by an Arab sheik upon one of his native servants who had committed a similar depredation. His life-long friend the late William E. Dubois, of the United States Mint, has stated that "eight or nine years after the robbery a few very fine gold pieces of English coinage were offered for sale at the Mint cabinet-rooms. I was so well convinced that the labels were in his handwriting that I sent for him to come and see them. He could not deny the likeness, but seemed reluctant to entertain the subject at all."

During these years of study and research Mr. Mickley must not be thought of as a strict specialist. Side by side with his fascinating collection of coins there was an ever-growing library, the extent and value of which were never appreciated until his death. This accumulation was in itself an example of his cosmopolitan tastes. It was copious in local history, in biography, in music, in general literature, in costly and well-preserved black-letter editions, in illuminated missals dating back to the thirteenth century, and, above all else, in autographs. Of the latter, space cannot be spared here for anything approaching a full description. As some indication of their value, it may be mentioned that a letter of George Washington (the last he was known to write), dated six days before his death, was bought by George W. Childs, Esq., for one hundred and fifteen dollars. A letter of Abraham Lincoln to General McClellan fetched nearly one hundred dollars. There were also signed autograph letters of all the governors of Pennsylvania, of all the Presidents, and of all the signers of the Declaration of Independence. The latter group is rarely met with complete; and three of the scarcest names alone sold for as much as all the others put together. There were signatures also of about forty generals of the Revolutionary war, of both the British and American armies, and including Lafayette and Kosciusko. Both Napoleon and Josephine were represented; and the lovers of poetic justice will be glad to know that the latter name brought double that of the great emperor. In autographs of literary and musical celebrities the collection was extraordinarily rich, those of Goethe and Schiller, Beethoven and Mozart, being conspicuous. But the chief rarity was a large album formerly owned by Babet von Ployer. This contained, among other treasures, a manuscript of Haydn, believed to be the only one ever offered for sale in this country. It also contained an India-ink sketch of Mozart, drawn by his wife Constance. At the sale in 1878 this album was knocked down for one hundred and twenty-six dollars, although three hundred dollars had been previously refused for it. The Mozart letter, a particularly interesting specimen, was sold for fifty-two dollars to M.H. Cross, Esq.

Turning from the autographs to the books, we find still greater value and variety. The historical portion, especially where it referred to local subjects, was almost phenomenal. One precious lot comprised a complete set of the first daily newspaper of the United States, beginning with the "Pennsylvania Packet" in 1771, and continuing unbroken, through several changes of title and proprietorship, for one hundred and seven years. An amusing incident is related in connection with Mr. Mickley's purchase of the larger portion of this series,—"Poulson's Advertiser" from 1800 to 1840. When the wagon was driven to his door, loaded with the purchase, the housekeeper exclaimed, "What ever is to be done with all this truck?" Yet this "truck," a mine of wealth to the future historian, was sold after Mickley's death for eight hundred dollars. There were city directories of several editions for ninety-three years. The black-letter list was quite large, and there were more than thirty editions of the Bible, some of great rarity, and nearly all in a fine state of preservation.

From the time of the coin-robbery the older acquaintances of Mr. Mickley noticed a decided change in him. On the subject of coins, once so voluble, he grew very reticent. His business, which had for many years appeared rather a pastime than a task to him, grew irksome. After a period of uncertainty, he finally decided to close up his affairs and spend some years in foreign travel. In spite of advanced age, he was both physically and mentally well equipped for such a journey. His health had always been good. His temper seemed never to be ruffled. Of the French and German languages he was a master, and he had some knowledge of the Spanish, Italian, and Swedish. His previous extensive acquaintance with men of many nations and habits was kept fresh in mind by a remarkable memory. With all these advantages, the period of his travels was the most interesting of his life.

Mr. Mickley set sail on the 5th of June, 1869, being at that time a few months past his seventieth year. He remained abroad for three years, visiting every country in Europe, ascending the Nile to the first cataract, passing through the Suez Canal, and across a portion of Asia Minor and Palestine. He made two trips to Northern Sweden to behold the spectacle of the midnight sun. Being a week too late on the first season, he tried it again the following year. Passing through the entire length of the Gulf of Bothnia, and ascending the Tornea River, he entered Lapland, crossing the Arctic circle and penetrating the Arctic zone in a sledge-journey of seventy miles. The indomitable old traveller pushed on until he reached a small lumber-village named Pajala. On the night of June 23, 1871, crossing the river with a small party of Swedes and Finns, he ascended Mount Avasaxa, in Finland. At this altitude, he says, "the sky happened to be clear in the direction of the sun, and he shone in all his glory as the clock struck twelve."

During this prolonged absence he visited almost every considerable town in Germany, Holland, Italy, and England. The instant that he arrived at a town, he seemed to know the shortest cut to its museum. If there was an antiquarian in the place, he knew of it beforehand, and hastened either to make or renew an acquaintance. In the larger cities he was surrounded by these people, and he expressed unaffected surprise and pleasure at their attentions. He made visits of inspection to nearly every mint in Europe, having been commissioned by the Philadelphia Mint to make purchases of rare coins for its cabinet. Here the old passion appears to have blazed up again for a little while. It was an entire surprise to his family to discover among his possessions at his death the nucleus of a new collection, which was sold for about two thousand dollars.

Mr. Mickley made at this period some valued acquaintances. Among these was the Italian composer Mercadante. At the time of Mickley's visit, in April, 1870, the composer, who was also president of the Conservatoire in Naples, had been blind for eight years. "The old gentleman," says Mickley (who, by the way, was only two years his junior), "held out his hand and bade me welcome. I told him it would be a lasting pleasure to have shaken hands with so highly distinguished a man, whose name had long since been favorably known in America. At this his face brightened; he arose from the sofa, shook my hand cordially, wishing me health, happiness, and a safe voyage." Later, at Brussels, he called on M. Fetiss, the famous French musical critic and biographer. At that time, in his eighty-eighth year, Fetis was a fugitive from Paris, owing to the troubles of the Franco-Prussian war. Mr. Mickley's picture of the veteran litterateur and critic is an engaging one. He says, "Considering his great age, Mr. Fetis is very active. He climbed up the stepladder to get books and to show me such as he considered the most rare and interesting. He is not only active in body, but he retains all the faculties of his mind. He appears to have a very happy disposition. While I was with him a continual smile was on his face, and it seemed to give him great pleasure to show me his books. He has been engaged in collecting them for over fifty years, and they have cost him a sum equal to three hundred thousand dollars, exclusive of a great many presents. The first book on music was printed in 1480." At Trieste he spent some time with the United States consul there, Mr. Thayer, of Boston, best known to musical and literary people as the author of an exhaustive Life of Beethoven, which has been under way for nearly thirty years and is not yet finished. Mr. Thayer showed his visitor all the historic data and personal relics which he had collected for the book, of which at that date only one volume had been published. Since then Mercadante and F?s have been gathered to their fathers. Their genial guest is also gone. The industrious Mr. Thayer lives, with three volumes of the Life completed, and every American, either literary or musical, will wish him well on to the conclusion of his magnum opus.

Mr. Mickley's plain personal habits remained almost unchanged by the many unforeseen exigencies of foreign travel. Once, at Rouen, six months after leaving home, he says, "Tasted wine for the first time in Europe, as the water here did not agree with me." A little later, at Munich, he remarks, "Drank beer for the first time." His pockets remained as accessible as heretofore to the nimble-fingered gentry. Upon his first visit to Naples, he records very naively, "Three silk handkerchiefs have been stolen from me here,—which is one more than in London." At Jaffa, on his way from Egypt to Palestine, besides the robbery of coins alluded to some time back, he lost a choice autograph manuscript of Mozart which had cost him two hundred and fifty francs at Salzburg. If careless in these particulars, he was very watchful and jealous of opportunities to uphold America's position in the world. He took special pains to inform the mint-masters at various points concerning the superior appliances and machinery of the Philadelphia Mint. On the way back from Lapland, while steaming southward along the upper waters of the Gulf of Bothnia, he writes, under date of July 4, 1871, "This being our national holiday, I put up my flag on the door of my berth, but was obliged to explain the meaning of the holiday to nearly all the passengers." While in England, he met at Manchester a barrister who had formerly been his guest in Philadelphia. This gentleman proposed to introduce him to an American lawyer then practising there. "I asked the name. He said it was Judah P. Benjamin. I declined the invitation."

Wherever Mr. Mickley journeyed, so long as any fresh acquisition of knowledge was to be gained the old traveller appeared insensible to fatigue. When halfway up the Great Pyramid an English group who were in his company stopped and insisted upon going no farther. He resolutely continued, and they, unwilling to see so aged a man out-distance them, followed reluctantly, until all reached the summit and congratulated each other on the famous view. In St. Petersburg, Moscow, and other Russian cities, which he visited in the winter season, he was equally untiring and undaunted. As a specimen of his accuracy of observation, he writes during his first journey in Italy, "I counted forty-six tunnels between Pisa and Bologna." Several severe accidents fell to his lot. In Rome, while exploring a dark, arched passage, he fell into "Cicero's Well," receiving severe bruises. In a street in Constantinople, where there are no sidewalks, he was knocked down by a runaway horse and taken up for dead, remaining insensible for several hours. The former of these mishaps occupies three lines in his diary; the latter, twelve lines. On his third visit to Leipsic he was confined in his room for several weeks with an attack of smallpox. But in regard to none of these accidents, although an aged man, thousands of miles from home, and entirely alone, does he betray any symptoms of apprehension. He merely adds, on the date of his recovery from the attack at Leipsic, "This sickness has detained me much longer than I had expected to stay."

In one of Mickley's trips he made a not unimportant contribution to musical history. Almost every student of instrumental music is acquainted with the name of Jacob Steiner or Stainer, the most successful of violin-makers outside of the Cremonese school of workmen. Of Steiner's life but little is known, and no biography of him extant in either French, German, or English contains either the date or place of his death. The account commonly given is that he separated from his wife and died in a convent. Mr. Mickley, with his accustomed perseverance, started out to see if this matter might not be cleared up. At Innspruck he inquired in vain for information. As Fetis and Forster both fixed his birthplace at Absom, a small village some twelve miles from Innspruck, Mickley repaired thither. For some time his errand was fruitless. He stopped in at a little shop where an old woman sold photographs, etc. "I asked her, 'Did you never hear of Jacob Steiner, the violin-maker?' She replied, 'There is no Steiner nor violin-maker living in this town.' I then said that a celebrated violin-maker of that name, of whom I desired some information, had lived there two hundred years before. She replied, quite seriously, 'I am not two hundred years old.'" A few minutes later, in the course of his walk, his eye fell upon an old church, the outer wall of which contained a number of stone tablets with inscriptions. A search of five minutes revealed the desired information. On a plain tablet Steiner's name was found, together with the information, given in very old-fashioned German, that he had died there in 1683, "at the rising of the sun."

The closing field of Mr. Mickley's travels covered Southern France and Spain, Lisbon, where he passed the winter of 1871-72, and Madrid. The weather being very severe, he was detained two months at Lisbon, where he engaged a teacher and took daily lessons in Portuguese. He had done the same at Stockholm the previous winter with the Swedish language, which he mastered pretty thoroughly. At Madrid he examined what he emphatically pronounced the finest collection of coins in the world, numbering one hundred and fifty thousand specimens. He adds, "This is the only place in Europe where the subject is properly understood. Alfonzo V., King of Aragon, in the fifteenth century, was the first person known to have collected coins for study or amusement, and Augustin, Archbishop of Tarragona, was the first writer on the subject. The science of numismatics is, therefore, of Spanish origin."

Mr, Mickley left Madrid in March, crossing the Pyrenees and arriving in Paris on the 24th of that month, his seventy-third birthday. He "made the tour of three hundred and sixty-three miles in twelve hours, without being in the least fatigued." After a few weeks passed in Paris and in revisiting friends in England, he sailed for home, arriving in Philadelphia June 5, 1872, exactly three years from the date of his departure.

It was surprising to his friends how little change the lapse of years and the somewhat rugged incidents of travel had made in Mr. Mickley. He quickly settled down, and, as nearly as possible, resumed his old habits. He bought himself a residence, but followed the Paris custom of taking his meals elsewhere. In the house he was entirely alone, even without a servant. After a time he showed some disposition to concede to "luxuries" which he had previously ignored. Carpets he had never used in his life, but he now admitted that they were very pleasant and comfortable, and ordered his house to be carpeted throughout. The arrangement of his library in the new quarters was a great pleasure, and took some time. Mr. Mickley was in no sense of the word a politician, but he voted pretty regularly. An incident connected with his last visit to the polls was amusing. Having been three years absent, a patriotic Hibernian, who kept the window-book and knew nothing of him, demanded to see his tax-receipt. The old gentleman went quietly home and brought back the desired document. He was next asked if he could read and write, which question, however, was not pressed. The last scene in Mr. Mickley's life was as quiet and peaceful as its whole tenor had been. On the afternoon of February 15, 1878, Mr. Carl Plagemann, the well-known musician and a friend of many years' standing, called at his house. While he waited, Mr. Mickley wrapped for him some violin-strings, the last work of his hands. He requested Mr. Plagemann to go with him that evening to visit another old friend,—Oliver Hopkinson, Esq., at whose house there were to be some quartettes. "I have a letter," he said, "from the Russian ambassador, a part of which I am unable to translate. A Russian lady is to play the piano there this evening, and I shall ask her to help me out." Mr. Plagemann could not go, and, as so often before, Mr. Mickley started out alone. Just before reaching the house of Mr. Hopkinson he was taken suddenly ill, and, chancing to be close by the residence of his physician, Dr. Meigs, he stopped there and rang the bell. As the door opened, he said in husky tones, "I am suffocating." He walked in and ascended the stairs without assistance. Then he said, "Take me to a window." As this was being done, he fell back insensible into the arms of the attendants, and, a few minutes later, breathed his last.

Thus, on the very western edge of fourscore years, ended this long and industrious, this peaceful and beautiful life. In our land of busy and constant action there have been few like it,—surely none happier. Serene at the close as it was placid in its course, its lot had been cast ever between quiet shores, which it enriched on either hand with its accumulated gifts of knowledge and of taste. And at the close of it all there could be no happier eulogy than the one modestly yet comprehensively delivered by his old and congenial friend William E. Dubois, himself since summoned to take the same mysterious journey. "In fine," says he, "Mr. Mickley seemed superior to any meanness; free from vulgar passions and habits, from pride and vanity, from evil speaking and harsh judging. He was eminently sincere, affable, kind, and gentle: in the best sense of the word he was a gentleman."

J. BUNTING.

* * * * *



ROSE ROMANCE.

Two roses, freshly sweet and rare, Bloomed in the dewy morning On neighboring bushes green and fair, One garden-bed adorning. "Ah!" sighed the pair, "what joy, what pride. If on one branch together We two were growing side by side Through all this golden weather!"

There came a youth who roughly tore The roses from their bowers, And to his sweetheart proudly bore The two fair, fragrant flowers. Upon her bosom with delight They bloomed,—but not forever: They faded—ah! but, rapture bright, They faded there together.

ADA NICHOLS.

* * * * *



THE WHITE WHATERS.

"Down with her! Hard!" came hoarsely through the mist.

An oil-skinned figure threw himself heavily upon the oar; the little craft rounded tremblingly up into the wind, hurling clouds of spray and foam aloft that were borne far away by the whistling breeze. For a moment the sail beat furiously, as if in protest at this infringement upon its privileges, then a second oil-skin—the cause of all this commotion—raised his arms, a steel spear flashed, a willowy pole trembled in the air, a quick movement, a roar of rushing waters, a shower of spray that drenched the craft, a sound of escaping steam or hissing rope, and a white whale had been struck by Captain Sol Gillis, of Bic.

Captain Gillis, as might be assumed, was not a native of the province of Quebec, but merely a carpet-bagger, who moved north in the summer and returned in early autumn about the time the wild geese went south, and all for reasons known only to himself. He hailed from down East, and voted in a small town not many miles from the historic shell-heaps and the ancient city of Pemaquid.

Our meeting with the down-East skipper was entirely one of accident. Wandering along the beach at Bic, we had come upon a boat, half dory, half nondescript, which from the possession of certain peculiarities was claimed by one of the party to be of Maine origin, and, to settle the dispute, a little house a few hundred yards higher up was visited.

It was like many others along shore,—single-storied, painted white, with green blinds, with a small garden in the rear, in which grew old-fashioned flowers and an abundance of "yarbs" that bespoke a mistress of Thompsonian leanings. A stack of oars, seine-sticks, and harpoon-handles leaned against the roof; gill-nets festooned the little piazza, while a great iron caldron, that had evidently done service on a New Bedford whaler, had been utilized by the good housewife to capture the rain-water from the shingled roof.

"Mornin' to ye, gentlemen. Been lookin' at the bot?" queried a tall, thin, red-faced man, with an unusually jolly expression, stepping out from a shed.

"Yes. We thought she was of Maine build," replied the disputant.

"Wall, so she is," said the mariner,—"so she is; and there ain't none like her within forty mile of Bic. I'm of Maine build myself," he added. "But I ain't owner. I'm sorter second mate to Sol Grillis; sailed with him forty year come Christmas. Don't ye know him? What! don't know Sol Gillis!" And a look of incredulity crept into the old man's eye. "Why, I thought Sol was knowed from Bic to Boothbay all along shore. But come in, do. I know ye're parched," continued the friend of the skipper, dropping his palm and needle and motioning the visitors toward the little sitting-room. "Mother," he called, "here's some folks from daown aour way."

As the old man spoke, a large-framed woman appeared in the door-way, holding on to the sides for support, and bade us welcome. Her eyes were turned upward, and had a far-away look, as if from long habit of gazing out to sea, but, as we drew nearer, we saw that she was blind.

Leading the way into the kitchen, which was resplendent with shining pans and a glistening stove, all the work of the thrifty but blind housewife, she began to entertain us in her simple manner, and described a model of a full-rigged ship that rested on a table, though she had never seen it, with an exactness that would have done credit to many a sailor: even the ropes and rigging were pointed out, and all their uses dwelt upon with a tenderness strangely foreign to the subject.

"And Captain Sam built it?" we asked.

"No, no," replied the old lady, turning her head to hide a tear that stole from the sightless eyes. "It's all we've got to remember aour boy John. He built her and rigged her. He was his mother's boy, but—"

"He went down on the Grand Banks in the gale of '75," broke in her husband hoarsely.

"Yes," continued the wife, "me and Sam's all alone. It's all we've got, and Sam brings it up every summer as sorter company like. Ye're friends of Captain Sol, I guess," she said, brightening up after a moment. "No?" and she looked in the direction of the captain, as if for a solution of the mystery. "Naow, ye don't tell me that ye ain't acquainted with Captain Sol, and ye're from aour way, too? Why," she continued earnestly, "Sol's been hog-reeve in aour taown ten years runnin'; and as for selec'-man, he'll die in office. Positions of trust come jest as nat'ral to him as reefin' in a gale of wind. Him and my man tuck to one another from the first."

"Then you were not townsmen always," we suggested.

"No, we wa'n't," was the reply.

"My man and Sol met under kinder unusual circumstances. Tell 'em haow it was, Sam."

The old sailor was sitting on the wood-box, shaping a row-lock from a piece of white pine, and, when thus addressed, looked up with a blank expression, as if he had been on a long search for ideas and had returned without them.

"He gits wanderin' in his ideas when he sets his mind on the '75 gale," whispered the old lady. "Tell 'em abaout yer meetin' Captain Sol, Sam," she repeated.

"Me and Sol met kinder cur'us," began the captain. "That year I was first mate of the Marthy Dutton, of Kennebec; and on this identical v'yage we was baound daown along with a load of coal. In them days three was a full-handed crew for a fore-an'-after, and that's all we had,—captain, mate, and cook, and a dog and cat. One evenin',—I reckon we was ten miles to the south'ard of Boon Island,—it was my trick at the wheel, and all hands had turned in. It was blowin' fresh from the east'ard, and I had everything on her I could git. I reckon it was nigh on ter two o'clock, and as clear as it is to-day, when the fust thing I knowed the schooner was on her beam ends. She gave a kind of groan like, pitched for'ard, and down she went, takin' everything with her; and, afore I knowed what was the matter, I found myself floatin' ten miles from shore. I see it was no use, but I thought I'd make a break for it: so I got off my boots and ile-skins in the water, and struck aout for shore, that I could see every once in a while on a rise.

"Wall, to make a long story short, I reckon I was in the water a matter o' four hours, when I see the lights of a schooner comin' daown on me. I hailed, and she heard me, ran up in the wind, put aout a bot, and Sol Gillis, the skipper, yanked me in. I couldn't have held aout ten minutes longer. So Sol and me has been tol'able thick ever since."

"Here he comes naow," said the matron, whose quick ear had caught the sound of approaching footsteps. "Sam, set aout my pennyroyal, will ye? Ye see," she added apologetically, "Sol is literary, and when he comes raound he gives us all the news, and there is sech goin's on in the papers nowadays that it jest upsots my nerves to hear him and Sam talkin' 'em over. Sech murders, riots, wrackin', and killin' of folks! If it wa'n't for a dish of tea I 'low I couldn't hear to it." And the good woman held out her hand to a burly fisherman in a full suit of oil-skins, and presented him to the visitors as Sam's friend, Captain Sol Gillis.

"I'm a white-whaler at present, gentlemen," said the captain, with a hearty laugh that was so contagious that all hands joined in, scarcely knowing why.

He was a tall, robust specimen of a down-Easter, his open face reddened by long battling with wind and weather, and shaved close except beneath the chin, from which depended an enormous beard that served as a scarf in winter and even now was tucked into his jacket.

"It's a curious thing, naow, for the captain and mate of a coaster to be in furrin parts a-whalin'; but we find it pays,—eh, Sam?" And Captain Sol closed one eye and looked wisely for a second at his friend, upon which the two broke into hearty laughter that had a ring of smuggled brandy and kerosene in it, though perhaps it was only a ring, after all.

"Kin yaou go whalin'?" said the captain in reply to a question of one of the visitors. "Why, sartin. White-whalin's gittin' fashionable. There's heaps o' chaps come daown here from Montreal and Quebec and want to go aout: so I take 'em. Some shoots, and some harpoons, and abaout the only thing I've seen 'em ketch yet is a bad cold; but there's excitement in it, —heaps of it: ain't there, Sam?"

"I ain't denyin' of it," replied the latter. "What's sport for some is hard work for others. Work I calls it."

"Wall, as I say," continued the skipper, "white-whalin' is gittin' fashionable, so in course there ain't no hard work abaout it; and if yaou will go, why, I'm goin' aout now, me and Sam. The only thing, it's dampish like; but perhaps mother here kin rig yaou aout."

Half an hour later the two landsmen were metamorphosed into very respectable whalers, and, with the two captains, were running the whale-boat down the sands of Bic into the dark waters of the St. Lawrence. The light sail was set, and soon we were bounding away in the direction of Mille Vaches, Captain Sam at the oar that constituted the helm, and Captain Sol in the bow, with harpoon at hand, ready for the appearance of game.

The white whale, or Beluga, is extremely common at the mouth of the St. Lawrence, and is found a considerable distance up the river beyond Tadousac. The oil is in constant demand for delicate machinery, and Beluga leather, made from the tanned hide, is manufactured into a great variety of articles of necessity and luxury.

In appearance these whales are the most attractive of all the cetaceans. They are rarely over twenty feet in length, more commonly fifteen, of a pure creamy color, sometimes shaded with a blue tint, but in the dark water they appear perfectly white, perhaps by contrast, and seem the very ghosts of whales, darting about, or rising suddenly, showing only the rounded, dome-shaped head.

The Beluga is a toothed whale, in contradistinction to those that are supplied with the whalebone-like arrangement that characterizes the right whales: consequently its food consists of fish and perhaps squid. To enable it to capture such prey it must be endowed with remarkable powers of speed. The motor is the great horizontal tail, powerful strokes of which force the animal; through the water and enable it to leap high into the air in its gambols. The pectoral fins are small and of little use in swimming. The head is the most remarkable feature. It is the only instance in this group of animals where this organ appears at all distinct from the body. By viewing the creature in profile, a suggestion of neck may be seen, and it is claimed that there is more or less lateral motion,—that the head can be moved from side to side to a limited extent. The outlines of the face are shapely, the forehead rising in a dome-like projection and rounding off in graceful lines, so that the head resembles to some extent that of our common Balaena Cisarctica.

In their movements the Belugas are remarkably active, and are very playful, —leaping into the air in their love-antics, rolling over and over, chasing each other, and displaying in many ways their wonderful agility. They often follow vessels in schools of forty and fifty, and old whalers claim that they utter a whistling sound that can be heard distinctly above the water. The young, sometimes two, but generally one, are at first brown in color, later assuming a leaden hue, then becoming mottled, and finally attaining the cream-white tint of the adult. The calves are frequently seen nursing,—the mother lying upon the surface and rolling gently.

The Beluga has a wide geographical range, being found upon our northern and northwestern shores in great numbers. Their southern limit seems to be the St. Lawrence, and in search of food they venture up this river beyond the mouth of the Saguenay, and often in water but little over their own depth. On the western coast they also enter the great rivers, and have been captured up the Yukon seven hundred miles from its mouth. In their columnar movements they somewhat resemble the porpoise,—long processions being frequently seen, composed of three in a row, perhaps led by a single whale.

Among the Samoyeds, at Chabanova, on the Siberian coast, the white-whale fisheries amount to fifteen hundred or two thousand pood of train-oil a year. On the coasts of Nova Zembla and Spitzbergen they are captured by enormous nets made of very stout material; and the Tromsoe vessels alone have taken in a single season over two thousand one hundred and sixty-seven white whales, valued at about thirty thousand dollars. Magdalen a Bay is a favorite place for them, and often three hundred are taken at a single haul in the powerful nets. Here and in most of the northern localities the entire body is utilized,—the carcass being used in the manufacture of guano. So perfectly are the bodies preserved by the cold of these northern regions that if they cannot be removed at the time of capture they are secured in the ensuing season.

As the boat reached mid-stream, where the wind was blowing against the current, great rollers were met with, that tossed the light craft about like a ball. But this was evidently the play-ground of the Beluga, and dead ahead the white forms were seen darting about in the inky water with startling distinctness, while faint puffs were occasionally borne down on the wind.

Gradually we neared them, and suddenly a white dome appeared on the weather bow. Then came the command and ensuing scene chronicled at the commencement of this paper.

We were perfectly familiar with whaling-terms, and as the game was struck we construed Captain Sam's impressive "git aft" to mean "starn all," and even in that moment of stumbling and drenching felt a sense of disappointment in the suppression of a time-honored term. To omit "There she blows!" was enough; but to substitute "git aft" for "starn all" was a libel on the chroniclers of the "Whaler's Own Book."

There was little time, however, for regrets. Our combined weight had raised the bow a trifle, yet not enough to prevent the sea from coming in; and, as the skipper, who was laboring with the steering-oar, said, the small whaler was "hoopin' along, takin' everything as it came, and askin' no questions." Now by the slight slacking of the line we were high on a wave, the crest of which was dashed in our faces in the mad race; now down in a hollow, taking the next sea bodily and plunging through it, causing the oars and harpoons to rattle as if they were the very bones of the boat shaking in fear and terror.

In a short time she was a third full of water, and the amateur whalers were invited to man the pumps—namely, two tin basins—and bale the St. Lawrence out as fast as it came in. The maddened animal soon carried us beyond the area of heavy seas, and preparations were made for taking in the slack. The boat was still rushing along at an eight-knot rate; and, as the whale showed no signs of weakening, it was Captain Sam's opinion that nothing short of the lance would stop him.

"Jest lay holt of the line, will ye?" sung out Captain Sol, passing the slack aft, and four pairs of arms hauled the boat nearer the game, that was far ahead. At first this only spurred the creature to further endeavors; but the steady pull soon told, and, after an amount of labor that can only be compared to sawing a cord of wood with a dull implement, the white head of the Beluga came in sight.

"Steady, now!" shouted Captain Sol, releasing his hold and picking up the lance. "Now, then, work her ahead."

A final haul, and the boat was fairly alongside of the fleeing animal, careening violently under its rapid rushes; and, in response to the order "Git to wind'ard," we sprang to the weather rail. A moment of suspense, a quick motion of the lance, and the great white body of the whale rose from the water and fell heavily back, beating it into foam in its convulsive struggles.

"She dies hard," said Captain Sol, shaking the water from the creases of his oil-skin as the boat rounded to at a safe distance from the dying whale. "But," he continued, lighting a match by biting the sulphur and puffing violently at a short, black pipe, "that ain't nothing to what they do sometimes: is it, Sam?"

"I ain't denyin' of it," was the reply of that individual, who was now sculling the boat about the whale in a great circle.

"I've seen," continued the skipper, "a white whale smash a bot so clean that ye'd thought it had been through a mill; and it was a caution haow we didn't go with it. That was a curious year," he added. "Something happened to drive the whales up here so thick that the hull river was alive with 'em, and of course we was for reapin' the harvest. When we struck the rip-rap—as they call the tide agin' the wind—it was jest alive with 'em, puffin' and snortin' on all sides. I had three harpoons aboard, besides a rifle, and in a minute I had two foul, with buoys after 'em, and as one big feller came up alongside to blow I let him have it with the rifle.

"Naow," he went on, "whether they heard it or not I can't say, but I heard a yell from Sam jest in time to look and see a whale rise I'll 'low twenty foot clean out of the water. Then there was a kind of a rush, and Sam and me went down, and when we riz it was gone. The critter had hopped clean over that bot as slick as nothing. That kinder tuck the peartness aout of us, so to speak; but later in the day I got aout the gun ag'in, havin' broke the lance, and in killin' the critter she jumped on the bot, and—wall, Sam and me we lit aout, and was picked up after a spell; but that bot, there wasn't enough of her to make kindlin'-wood of.

"They ain't vicious like," continued the skipper, "but clumsy, and if yaou git in the way ye're bound to git hurted. Round the bend at Bic Island one came ashore one time and got left every tide, so she was aout of water an hour or so every day. Heaps of city folks went to see her, and one chap came along and let on haow she couldn't be alive aout of water, and poked her like with a stick. Wall, it ain't for me to say haow many feet she knocked him, but when she fetched him with her flukes it was a Tuesday, and I guess he thought he'd reached the turnin'-p'int of Friday when he hauled himself aout of the mud.

"No, they won't exactly live aout of water, but they'll stand it a like of three weeks if yaou splash 'em every hour or so. They sent one to England that way. They ain't fish. Whales' milk's good, if cream is.

"But the best bit of whalin'," continued the communicative Captain Sol, "that I ever see in these 'ere parts was done by that identical old chap in the starn there."

"When Sol ain't talkin', gentlemen," retorted the person thus alluded to, "ye'll know he's sick,"

"Wall," said Captain Sol, laughing, "I'll spin the yarn, and yaou kin go back on it if yaou kin. As I was sayin', we was aout one day I think a couple o' miles below Barnaby Island. I was a-mummin' for'ard, kinder sleep-in' on and by, and Sam at the helm, when we see a bot a-slidin' into the ripple right ahead of us, and in a minute a couple of white heads was dodgin' up a little to the wind'ard. Sam trimmed the sheet and hauled the Howlin' Mary—that's what we called the bot—-on the wind, and the other bot did the same, both of us makin' for the same spot. I see it was nip and tuck; and, knowin' that Sam was a master-hand, I says. ' Sam, yaou take the iron.' So we shifted.

"The other bot had a trifle the weather-gage of us, but both of us, mind ye, makin' for where we thought the critter was comin' up to blow, and in a minute, sure enough, up it come. This 'ere other bot shot right across aour bows; but, Lord bless ye, it would take a proper good Injun to beat Sam, for he up, hauls back, and let fly the harpoon clean over the other hot, takin' the critter right alongside the blow-hole so neat that the line fell across the other bot.—Naow, deny it if yaou kin," said Captain Sol, turning to his friend.

"Ye're a master-hand at talkin'," retorted Captain Sam. "I ain't denyin' of it; but it was luck, good luck, that's all."

By this time the white whale had succumbed, and lay upon the surface motionless and dead; and upon the boat being hauled alongside the huge creature was taken in tow and soon stranded upon the beach, where the valuable parts were secured,—the liver and blubber for the oil, and the thick, white skin that was to be tanned and made into leather or used in the manufacture of various articles.

The evening following, upon invitation, we visited the cabin of Captain Sol, who was a widower and kept bachelor's hall, so to speak. We found him seated on a keg, by the side of an enormous caldron that might have contained the witches' compound, judging from the strange forms of steam that arose from it, while the lurid flames beneath, fed by the oily drippings, lent a still greater weirdness to the scene.

"Good-evenin', gentlemen," said the captain, rising quickly as we entered. "I was settin' here in a sog like, and didn't hear ye. It's a master-night, and we're goin' to have good weather to-morrow. If yaou want to try it ag'in, ye're welcome.

"Sam? Sartin; he's goin'. Him and me's jest like the figger ten: if yaou haul off the one we ain't good for nothin'. If yaou want to see a faithful friend, jest clap yer eyes on Sam Whittlefield. And that ain't all," continued the skipper, looking around and speaking low. "Ye might not think it, for he's master-modest, but Sam's got larn-in' that there ain't many in aonr taown kin grapple with. Yaou oughter see his lib'ry. A full set o' the records of Congress from 1847 up to 1861; and he'd have had 'em all, only he jined the navy and couldn't keep 'em up. Then there's a history by Mister Parley, and a hull secretaryfull of books of all kinds. Oh, Sam's literary; there ain't no gittin' raound that.

"Yaou might hear him speak of their son John? Wall, he was a chip o' the old block. He was as wild a yonker as they make 'em; but Sam never laid the whip on him; he argued with him and eddicated him on a literary principle. When John did anything reckless like, the old lady'd fetch aout a sartin book, called 'The Terrible Suffering of Sary Perbeck,'—like enough ye've heard on it,—and I tell ye that tuck the conceit aout of him. She belonged to old Quaker stock of Paris, Maine, and she kept it up till John was a man grown and she lost her eyesight. She made a good boy of him; but the poor feller went down with the rest in the gale of 1875, on the Grand Banks. John had hard luck. The first v'yage he made, the schooner was struck by a sea on the Banks, capsized, and rolled completely under, comin' up the other side, so't the men below dropped out of their bunks on ter the ceilin', and then back ag'in as she righted.[A] The hatches were battened down, and they found John lashed to the wheel, half drowned. The next trip all hands foundered. They reckoned she went down at the anchorage.

[Footnote A: The schooner Daniel A. Burnam had a similar experience in 1877. She rolled completely over and righted herself without the loss of a man.]

"Have some beans, won't ye?" asked the skipper abruptly, as if he had been deluded by some trick into a gloomy frame of mind and was determined to shake it off then and there. "Them is the real New England beans," he continued, taking a black bean-pot with a wooden spoon from the ashes. "There's the bone and sinner of New England's sons right here. I'm master-fond of 'em; never sails withaout a pot or so. Every time I see a pot it makes me think of old Joe Muggridge, a deacon of aour taown. He beat me once years ago in 'lection for hog-reeve; but I don't bear no ill feelin'. He was deacon of the First Baptist, and captain of one of the biggest coasters in aour parts, and that fond of beans that folks believed he'd 'a' died if he couldn't have had 'em. Wall, it so happened one fall that there came on a powerful gale on the Georges, and a power of hands was lost. A good many bots got carried away from the schooners, and one dory with two men from Boothbay was picked up by one of these ocean-steamers bound in for New York, and that's the way the yarn got told. They'd been withaout food and water for three days, and were abaout givin' up; but the steamer-folks tuck 'em in and steamed for port.

"The next mornin' it was blowin' fresh and lively, and the lookout sighted a schooner lyin' to a couple of miles to the lew'ard, reefed daown close, and a flag flyin', union down,—signal of distress. Thinkin' they were sinkin', the captain of the steamer put towards her, and rounded to half a mile off and called for volunteers to git aout the bot. Half a dozen brave fellers sprang to the davits, and among 'em aour Boothbay boys. They'd been in a fix, ye see, and was eager to help the rest of sufferin' humanity. She was rollin' so that it tuck 'em nigh an hour to git the bot over, and then two men fell overboard; but finally they got off toward the schooner, all hands givin' 'em three cheers.

"It was a hard pull, and a nasty sea, but they kept at it, and in half an hour was within hailin'-distance. Then the third officer of the steamer stood up and sung aout, 'Schooner ahoy!' 'Ay, ay!' says a man in the schooner's fore-riggin', and the men see naow that she was ridin' like a duck and as dry as a sojer. 'Are ye in distress?' sung aout the officer. 'Yas,' came from the man in the riggin'. 'Flounderin'?' shouted the officer ag'in. 'No,' sung out old man Muggridge, for it was him: 'next thing to it. We're aout o' beans. Kin ye spare a pot?'

"Wall," continued Captain Sol, reddening with the roar of laughter that accompanied the recollection, "it ain't for me, bein' a perfesser of religion, to let on what the men in the bot said, but it had a master-effect on the deacon, for afore them rescuers got back to the steamer he'd shook aout his reefs and was haulin' to the east'ard.

"Wall," said the old skipper, banking the fire with a shovelful of sand, as his visitors rose to go, "to-morrow, then, at early flood, sharp."

The early flood was that dismal time when the phantom mists of night still cling to the earth, and low-lying clouds of fog cover the river, only to be dispersed by the coming day. Cold and cheerless as it was, it found us again launching the whale-boat, and, when the sail was trimmed aft and pipes lighted, we rushed into the fog and headed down the river to meet the rising sun.

The mist was so dense that only the glimmer of Captain Sol's pipe could be seen for'ard, appearing like an intermittent eye gleaming through the fog that settled upon our oil-skins in crystal drops and ran in tiny rivulets down the creases into the boat. For a mile we scudded along before the west wind through the gloom, and then a wondrous change commenced. Soft gleams of light shot from the horizon upward, the dark-blue heavens assumed a lighter tint, the pencilled rays growing broader and fusing together, producing a strange and rapidly-spreading nebulous light. The cloud of low-lying mist now became a brassy hue, seemingly heated to ignition, and then from its very substance appeared to rise a fiery, glowing mass that flooded the river with a golden radiance.

"It's a master-sight," quoth Captain Sol between the puffs, as the change went on and the fog began to break before the rising sun. "I ain't no likin' for fogs. Ye see——" But here the skipper stopped, as a peculiar sound and then another, the puffing of the white whale, was heard.

The boat was hauled on the wind, the mast unshipped, and, harpoon in hand, Captain Sol stood braced for the affray. The ripple seemed alive with the ghostly creatures, their white forms darting here and there, while the puffing came fast and furious.

"Stand by to git aft!" whispered the harpooner, and that moment, instead of a white head, the entire body of a Beluga rose in front of the boat, clearing the water in a graceful leap.

Quick as thought the skipper hurled his weapon. It struck with a sounding thud, a wing shot, and the great creature fell heavily, impaled in mid-air, to rush away, bearing boat and white-whalers far down the river toward the sea.

C.F. HOLDER.

* * * * *



OUR MONTHLY GOSSIP.

A Virginia Lady of the Old School.

Among the many beautiful and fascinating women who adorned Richmond society at the beginning of the present century there were few more remarkable and interesting than Mrs. Mayo, the wife of Colonel John Mayo, founder of the bridge at Richmond that bears his name. She was the daughter of John De Hart, of New Jersey, an eminent lawyer and a member of the first Continental Congress. Bellville, the home of Colonel and Mrs. Mayo, in the suburbs of Richmond, was the seat of elegant and boundless hospitality. No person of distinction ever came to Richmond without calling at Bellville, the entree to which was an unquestioned passport to the best society of the city.

Mrs. Mayo's eldest daughter, Maria, was the most celebrated Virginia belle of her day. She never gave a decided answer to any of her numerous suitors, and the story goes that one evening three gentlemen met at her house, and after a very pleasant visit they returned to Richmond together. One of them asked the others why they went there, as he was engaged to Miss Mayo and expected shortly to marry her. The other gentlemen also said they had hopes of winning the fair lady. The first gentleman determined to have the matter settled, and accordingly went to her house the following day and sought an interview with Mrs. Mayo. He told her he had her daughter's consent, and asked hers. Mrs. Mayo replied she was sorry she could not give her consent, and the gentleman then understood that the mother and daughter were in perfect accord in the matter of the young lady's love-affairs. In this way Miss Mayo kept on hand a regiment of admirers, who formed a sort of reserve-corps. When John Howard Payne, the author of "Home, Sweet Home," visited Richmond, he was a frequent guest at the Mayo mansion. He wrote a poem, in which he described himself as falling asleep in a grove and all the months of the year appearing to him. The month of June was the first, and he finally winds up with May, which he described in very glowing language, ending with the line,—