rs a pillar of strength in Congress, and
who started the first newspaper correspondence ever thought of, in the
_Portland Advertiser_, which he edited before he was twenty years old,
was a native of Portland, which city he represented in the legislature,
then travelled all over Europe on foot, and settled down in New York
before he was twenty-six. After this he spent twelve or fifteen years in
Congress--earned a place, second to no man there, as a statesman,
travelled over Europe three times, visited Egypt and the Holy Land, and
finished his travels by a trip round the world, taken between the
sessions of Congress. Beside this, he never ceased to be the leading
editor of the New York _Express_, and his book about Japan, China, and
so on, which Mr. Appleton, of New York, has published, is one of the
best books of travel extant.

Beside all these, Mr. King made his first literary start in Portland,
where, as a young man, he edited a weekly paper. But he has lived most
of his after-life in Washington, generally holding a high position
there. During a portion of Mr. Buchanan's administration, he was
Postmaster-General of these United States, and at all times he has been
considered a man worth knowing.

LIII.

A LITERARY PARTY.

Dear sisters:--Of course I, being a young girl of New England, felt
myself at home in Mrs. King's house the minute I entered it. There is
something in the air of a dwelling like that, pure and breezy, like the
morning winds on the Green Mountains. I felt myself growing frank and
cheerful as I got into the hall. The parlors were crowded full--three of
them--with people that one liked to look at, and longed to know; for
every face had an idea in it, and, beyond that, a good many were right
down beautiful.

But beauty by itself isn't enough to get an invitation here, and good
clothes count for just nothing, though there was plenty of them, and I
didn't feel as if my pink silk was too much. Something a little more
austere, in the velvet or alpaca line, might have been more appropriate
to the occasion. Still, there was a rosy brightness about my silk that
had a tendency to give a glow of youthful thoughtlessness to
intelligence, and combine an idea of high fashion with genius.

Mr. King, and his daughter, a proper, pretty stylish lady, stood near
the door when I went in, with the train of my dress streaming back into
the hall, and some natural rose-geranium leaves circling my brow in a
way