hild who was a frequent
visitor; but her deportment was always maidenly and lady-like."

The engagement happened in this wise. Mr. Child had been admitted to
the bar and had opened an office in Boston. One evening about nine
o'clock he rode out to Watertown on horseback and called at the
Curtises' where Miss Francis then was. "My mother, who believed the
denouement had come," says Mr. Curtis, "retired to her chamber. Mr.
Child pressed his suit earnestly. Ten o'clock came, then eleven, then
twelve. The horse grew impatient and Mr. Child went out once or twice
to pacify him, and returned. At last, just as the clock was striking
one, he went. Miss Francis rushed into my mother's room and told her
she was engaged to Mr. Child."

There are indications in this communication that Mr. Curtis did not
himself greatly admire Mr. Child and would not have married him, but
he concedes that, "Beyond all doubt, Mrs. Child was perfectly happy in
her relations with him, through their long life." After their
marriage, he says, they went to housekeeping in a "very small house in
Boston," where Mr. Curtis, then a youth of sixteen, visited them and
partook of a simple, frugal dinner which the lady cooked and served
with her own hands, and to which Mr. Child returned from his office,
"cheery and breezy," and we may hope the vivacity of the host may have
made up for the frugality of the entertainment.

In "Letters from New York," written to the Boston _Courier_, she
speaks tenderly of her Boston home which she calls "Cottage Place" and
declares it the dearest spot on earth. I assume it was this "very
small house" where she began her married life, where she dined the
fastidious Mr. Curtis, and where she seems to have spent eight or
nine happy years. Her marriage brought her great happiness. A friend
says, "The domestic happiness of Mr. and Mrs. Child seemed to me
perfect. Their sympathies, their admiration of all things good, and
their hearty hatred of all things mean and evil, were in entire
unison. Mr. Child shared his wife's enthusiasms and was very proud of
her. Their affection, never paraded, was always manifest." After Mr.
Child's death, Mrs. Child said, "I believe a future life would be of
small value to me, if I were not united to him."

Mr. Child was a man of fine intellect, with studious tastes and
habits, but there is too much reason to believe that his genius did
not lie in the management of practical life. Details of business w