me an advanced spiritualist, he had not yet coined into bullion his
golden imagination. He had forgotten the Spanish copper-mines, and I
took care not to remind him of them. Peace to his generous, ardent, and
loving soul!

Uncle John's wife was a good mate for him, in her own way as brilliant
and fascinating as he and with an unalterable belief in her husband's
destiny. She was a tall, slender woman, with kindling eyes, a lovely
smile, and a wonderful richness and vivacity of conversation; nor have
I ever since known so truly witty a woman. But she lacked the delightful
mellowness and tenderness for which Uncle John was so remarkable.
The mother, Madame O'Sullivan, as she was called, was a type of the
finegrained, gently bred aristocrat, every outline softened and made
gracious by the long lapse of years through which she had lived. She sat
like a picture of reverend but still animated age, with white, delicate
lace about her pale cheeks and dark, kindly, weary eyes, and making a
frost-work over her silvery hair. As for Miss Ella Rogers, it is with
some embarrassment that I refer to her; inasmuch as I fell violently in
love with her at first sight, and I have reason to think that she never
fully appreciated or adequately responded to my passion, though, at the
time, I was nearly one-third of her age--she being five-and-twenty. She
was a dark and lively beauty, thoroughly self-possessed, and versed in
social accomplishments, and gifted with dramatic talent. She afterwards
made a great impression in the court of the Portuguese monarch, and more
than once the King himself chose her as his partner in the ball. Reports
of these gayeties came to my ears; and I found the other day part of
a letter which I addressed to her, remonstrating against these royal
flirtations. It is written in pencil, upon the blue office-paper of
the consulate, and I can recall distinctly the small, indignant boy and
knight-errant, sitting at the desk opposite his hugely diverted father,
and beginning his epistle thus: "Lovely, but reprehensible Madham!"
I suspect that I consulted my father as to the spelling of the second
adjective, for it shows signs of having been overhauled; but after that
my feelings became too strong for me, and the remainder of the letter is
orthographically so eccentric that it was probably cast aside and a copy
made of it. But the rough draught, by some inconceivable chance, was
kept, and turns up now, after half a century, w