reature who had been
taken from my arms? Mr. James was certain that I should have this
coveted joy. He illustrated his belief in a singular way. "I lost a
leg," he said, "in early youth. I have had a consciousness of the limb
itself all my life. Although buried and out of sight, it has always
remained a part of me." This reassuring did not appeal to me strongly,
but his positive faith in a life after death gave me much comfort. Mr.
James occasionally paid me a visit. As he was sitting in my parlor one
day my little Maud, some seven or eight years old, passed by the open
door. Mr. James called out, "Come here, Maud. You are the wickedest
looking thing I have seen in some time." The little girl came, and Mr.
James took her up on his knee. Presently, to my horror, she exclaimed,
"Oh, how ugly you are! You are the ugliest creature I ever saw." This
freak of the child so impressed my visitor that, meeting some days later
with a lady friend, he could not help saying to her, "Mrs. ----, I know
that I am ugly, but am I the ugliest person that you ever saw? Maud Howe
said the other day that she had never seen any one so ugly."

My friend was in truth far from ill-looking. His features were
reasonably good, and his countenance fairly glowed with amiability,
geniality, and good-will. I found afterwards that my Maud had seriously
resented the epithet "wicked looking" applied to her, and had simply
sought to take a childish revenge in accusing Mr. James of ugliness.
Although Mr. James held much to Swedenborg's point of view, he did not
belong to the Swedenborgian denomination. I have heard that, on the
contrary, he was considered by its members as decidedly heterodox. I
think that he rarely attended any church services. I have heard of his
holding a communion service with one member of his family. He published
several works on topics connected with religion.

CHAPTER XV

A WOMAN'S PEACE CRUSADE

I had felt a great opposition to Louis Napoleon from the period of the
infamous act of treachery and violence which made him emperor. The
Franco-Prussian war was little understood by the world at large. To us
in America its objects were entirely unknown. On general principles of
good-will and sympathy we were as much grieved as surprised at the
continual defeats sustained by the French. For so brave and soldierly a
nation to go through such a war without a single victory seemed a
strange travesty of history. When to the immense w