trol your grief, or it will drive you mad, and we may have to
send you there."

Mrs. Lincoln was so completely overwhelmed with sorrow that she did not
attend the funeral. Willie was laid to rest in the cemetery, and the
White House was draped in mourning. Black crape everywhere met the eye,
contrasting strangely with the gay and brilliant colors of a few days
before. Party dresses were laid aside, and every one who crossed the
threshold of the Presidential mansion spoke in subdued tones when they
thought of the sweet boy at rest--

"Under the sod and the dew."

Previous to this I had lost my son. Leaving Wilberforce, he went to the
battle-field with the three months troops, and was killed in
Missouri--found his grave on the battle-field where the gallant General
Lyon fell. It was a sad blow to me, and the kind womanly letter that
Mrs. Lincoln wrote to me when she heard of my bereavement was full of
golden words of comfort.

Nathaniel Parker Willis, the genial poet, now sleeping in his grave,
wrote this beautiful sketch of Willie Lincoln, after the sad death of
the bright-eyed boy:

"This little fellow had his acquaintances among his father's friends,
and I chanced to be one of them. He never failed to seek me out in the
crowd, shake hands, and make some pleasant remark; and this, in a boy of
ten years of age, was, to say the least, endearing to a stranger. But he
had more than mere affectionateness. His self-possession--_aplomb_, as
the French call it--was extraordinary. I was one day passing the White
House, when he was outside with a play-fellow on the side-walk. Mr.
Seward drove in, with Prince Napoleon and two of his suite in the
carriage; and, in a mock-heroic way--terms of intimacy evidently
existing between the boy and the Secretary--the official gentleman took
off his hat, and the Napoleon did the same, all making the young Prince
President a ceremonious salute. Not a bit staggered with the homage,
Willie drew himself up to his full height, took off his little cap with
graceful self-possession, and bowed down formally to the ground, like a
little ambassador. They drove past, and he went on unconcernedly with
his play: the impromptu readiness and good judgment being clearly a
part of his nature. His genial and open expression of countenance was
none the less ingenuous and fearless for a certain tincture of fun; and
it was in this mingling of qualities that he so faithfully resembled his
father.

"With al