ensued:—

"Eliza, what book is that you are reading?"

"'Uncle Tom's Cabin,' dear."

"Is it? I don't need to know anything more about it—it must be the greatest book of the age."

His humor was extravagant. I once heard him exclaim, "How brilliant is the light which streams through the fissure of a cracked brain!" Again he spoke of "a fellow who couldn't go straight in a ropewalk." His anecdotes of things encountered in the exercise of his profession were most amusing.

He found us seated in the drawing-room, one evening, to receive a visit from a very shy professor of Brown University. The doctor, surveying the group, seized this poor man, lifted him from the floor, and carried him round the circle, to express his pleasure at seeing an old friend. The countenance of the guest meanwhile showed an agony of embarrassment and terror.

The doctor was very temperate in everything except tea, which he drank in the green variety, in strong and copious libations. Indeed, he had no need of wine or other alcoholic stimulants, his temperament being almost incandescent. Overflowing as he was with geniality, he yet accommodated himself easily to the requirements of a sick room, and showed himself tender, vigilant, and most sympathetic. He attended many people who could not, and some who would not, pay for his visits. One of these last, having been brought by him through an attack of cholera, was so much impressed with the kindness and skill of the doctor that he at once and for the first time sent him a check in recognition of services that money could not repay.

After many years of residence with us, my uncle and aunt Francis removed, first to lodgings, and later to a house of their own. Here my aunt busied herself much with the needs of rich and poor. Ladies often came to her seeking good servants, her recommendation being considered an all-sufficient security. Women out of place came to her seeking employment, which she often found for them. These acts of kindness, often involving a considerable expenditure of time and trouble, the dear lady performed with no thought of recompense other than the assurance that she had been helpful to those who needed her assistance in manifold ways. In her new abode Auntie lived with careful economy, dispensing her simple hospitality with a generous hand. She was famous among her friends for delicious coffee and for excellent tea, which she always made herself, on the table.

She sometimes invited friends for an evening party, but made it a point to invite those who were not her favorites for a separate occasion, not wishing to dilute her enjoyment of the chosen few, and, on the other hand, desiring not to hurt the feelings of any of her acquaintance by wholly leaving them out. When Edgar Allan Poe first became known in New York, Dr. Francis invited him to the house. It was on one of Auntie's good evenings, and her room was filled with company. The poet arrived just at a moment when the doctor was obliged to answer the call of a patient. He accordingly opened the parlor door, and pushed Mr. Poe into the room, saying, "Eliza, my dear, the Raven!" after which he immediately withdrew. Auntie had not heard of the poem, and was entirely at a loss to understand this introduction of the new-comer.

It was always a pleasure to welcome distinguished strangers to New York. Mrs. Jameson's visit to the United States, in the year 1835, gave me the opportunity of making acquaintance with that very accomplished lady and author. I was then a girl of sixteen summers, but I had read the "Diary of an Ennuyée," which first brought Mrs. Jameson into literary prominence. I read afterwards with avidity the two later volumes in which she gives so good an account of modern art work in Europe. In these she speaks with enthusiasm of certain frescoes in Munich which I was sorry, many years later, to be obliged to consider less beautiful than her description of them would have warranted one in believing. When I perused these works, having myself no practical knowledge of art, their graphic style seemed to give me clear vision of the things described. The beautiful Pinakothek and Glyptothek of Munich became to me as if I actually saw them, and when it was my good fortune to visit them I seemed, especially in the case of the marbles, to meet with old friends. Mrs. Jameson's connoisseurship was not limited to pictorial and sculptural art. Of music also she was passionately fond. In the book just spoken of she describes an evening passed with the composer Wieck in his German home. In this she speaks of his daughter Clara, and of her lover, young Schumann. Clara Wieck, afterwards Madame Schumann, became well known in Europe as a pianist of eminence, and of Schumann as a composer it needs not now to speak. There were various legends regarding Mrs. Jameson's private history. It was said that her husband, marrying her against his will, parted from her at the church door, and thereafter left England for Canada, where he was residing at the time of her visit. I first met her at an evening party at the house of a friend. I was invited to make some music, and sang, among other things, a brilliant bravura air from "Semiramide." When I would have left the piano, Mrs. Jameson came to me and said, "Altra cosa, my dear." My voice had been cultivated with care, and though not of great power was considered pleasing in quality, and was certainly very flexible. I met Mrs. Jameson at several other entertainments devised in her honor. She was of middle height, her hair red blond in color. Her face was not handsome, but sensitive and sympathetic in expression. The elegant dames of New York were somewhat scandalized at her want of taste in dress. I actually heard one of them say, "How like the devil she does look!"

After a winter passed in Canada, Mrs. Jameson again visited New York, on her way to England. She called upon me one day with a friend, and asked to see my father's pictures. Two of these, portraits of Charles First and his queen, were supposed to be by Vandyke. Mrs. Jameson doubted this. She spoke of her intimacy with the celebrated Mrs. Somerville, and said, "I think of her as a dear little woman who is very fond of drawing." When I went to return her visit, I found her engaged in earnest conversation with a son of Sir James Mackintosh. When he had taken leave, she said to me, "Mr. Mackintosh and I were almost at daggers drawing." So far as I could learn, their dispute related to democratic forms of government, and the society therefrom resulting, which he viewed with favor and she with bitter dislike. I inquired about her winter in Canada. She replied, "As the Irishman said, I had everything that a pig could want." A volume from her hand appeared soon after this time, entitled "Winter Studies and Summer Rambles in Canada." Her work on "Sacred and Legendary Art" and her "Legends of the Madonna" were published some years later.