sticity in his speech; he was not a man of culture or
polish, though unquestionably of great experience of the world. He was
dressed in a wide-skirted coat of black broadcloth, and wore a white
choker put on a little askew. The English, who were prone to be critical
of our representatives, made a good deal of fun of Mr. Buchanan, and
told anecdotes about him which were probably exaggerated or apocryphal.
It was alleged, for example, that, speaking of the indisposition of a
female relative of his, he had observed that it was due to the severity
of the English climate. "She never enjoyed delicate health at home," he
had declared; "in fact, she was always one of the most indelicate women
I've ever known." And it was asserted that he had been admonished by
the Lord High Chamberlain, or by the Gold Stick-in-Waiting, for
expectorating upon the floor of her Majesty's palace at a levee. Such
ribaldries used to be popular in English mouths concerning American
visitors before the war; they were all of similar tenor. Mrs. Abbott
Lawrence was described as having bought a handsome shawl at a shop
on Lord Street, in Liverpool, and to have walked down that populous
thoroughfare with her new purchase on her shoulders, ignorant that
it bore the legend, inscribed on a white card, which the salesman had
neglected to remove, "Perfectly chaste." The same lady was reported as
saying, in asking an invitation to a ball on behalf of Mrs. Augustus
Peabody, of Boston, "I assure you, on our side of the water, Mrs.
Peabody is much more accustomed to grant favors than to ask them." Such
anecdotes seem to bear upon them the stamp of the British manufacturer.
There would not seem to be much harm in them, yet it is such things
that sometimes interfere most acutely with the entente cordials between
nations. We had another glimpse of Mr. Buchanan, in London, about a year
later, and he then remarked to my mother, indirectly referring to such
reports, that the Queen had treated him very kindly. For the present, he
faded from the Rock Park horizon, and we returned to the robin; nor have
I been able to understand how it happened that he made so distinct an
impression upon my memory. But a child's memory is unaccountable, both
in what it loses and in what it retains.

One Sunday forenoon, when it was not too cold for the young folks to
be swinging on that gate which has been mentioned, and the elders were
in-doors, enjoying the holiday in their own way, we d