with Charles Kingsley, as he was twice her guest. She "kept house" admirably, and her little breakfasts and dinners were perfect.
She compiled during the war a very valuable book of autographs and prints, which was sold for the benefit of the Sanitary Commission — or, at least, she intended that it should be, but the sudden peace at Appomattox Court House and the overflow of money for the Sanitary Commission came before she had finished it, and she gave the money to France to establish an art scholarship.
As a woman she was a model character, ready to drop her own personality entirely, unselfish, agreeable, patient, sweet — the very person to hold a salon; with liberal opinions, but of a most respectable and modest character. She was an evangelical moralist in conduct, but would go to hear everybody preach — from archbishops of the Roman Church to Henry Ward Beecher. She was an "intelligent social being," but I do not think she ever asked herself what she did believe. She was determined to see and allow for both sides of the shield. She was interested in all the ultra views of the principal thinkers of her epoch. She liked to bring them all together. Everything that belonged to goodness, virtue, and humanity was dear to her. Everything she could do to advance the interests of art and literature, everything to help a friend in distress, to make the world happy and better, to promote sociability and the recognition of talent, this dear and distinguished woman did, during a long life. A thousand pities that she did not write herself down every day of her life!
There one would meet her early friend Mr. Charles Butler, the Hon. John Bigelow, Minister to France and biographer of Franklin, who had helped her to rise;
