the beautiful
Queen of Naples, who was a frequent visitor to the artist's studio,
and several well-known monuments. With her girlish fondness for
machinery, she has given much thought to mechanics in these later
years, striving to find, like many another, the secret of producing
perpetual motion. She spends much of her time now in England. She is
still passionately fond of riding, the Empress of Austria, who owns
more horses than any woman in the world, declaring "that there was
nothing she looked forward to with more interest in Rome, than to see
Miss Hosmer ride."

Many of the closing years of the sculptor's long life were spent in
Rome, where she had a wide circle of eminent American and English
friends, among whom were Hawthorne, Thackeray, George Eliot, and the
Brownings. She made several discoveries in her work, one of which was
a process of hardening limestone so that it resembled marble. She
also wrote both prose and poetry, and would have been successful as
an author, if she had not given the bulk of her time to her beloved
sculpture.

After her long sojourn in Rome she spent several years in England,
executing important commissions, and then turned her face toward
America. In Watertown, where she was born, she again made her home;
and here she breathed her last, February 21, 1908, after an illness of
three weeks. She was in her seventy-eighth year. By her long life of
earnest work and self-reliant purpose, coupled with her high gift, she
has made for herself an abiding place in the history of art.

MADAME DE STAEL.

[Illustration: MADAME DE STAEL.

From the painting by Mlle. Godefroy.]

It was the twentieth of September, 1881. The sun shone out mild and
beautiful upon Lake Geneva, as we sailed up to Coppet. The banks were
dotted with lovely homes, half hidden by the foliage, while brilliant
flower-beds came close to the water's edge. Snow-covered Mont Blanc
looked down upon the restful scene, which seemed as charming as
anything in Europe.

We alighted from the boat, and walked up from the landing, between
great rows of oaks, horsechestnuts, and sycamores, to the famous home
we had come to look upon,--that of Madame de Stael. It is a French
chateau, two stories high, drab, with green blinds, surrounding an
open square; vines clamber over the gate and the high walls, and
lovely flowers blossom everywhere. As you enter, you stand in a long
hall, with green curtains, with many busts, the finest