wever up-to-date the hyper-civilisation imported in dress-baskets
and handboxes may be, and however high the hothouse temperature under
which the New Englanders force the growths they receive from foreign
soil, their good old times are still within easy reach, and many an
ancient custom has survived, foremost amongst which, the practice of
hospitality.

One of the most practical forms in which it is dispensed is called a
Reception, and I most gratefully remember the pleasure and the
advantages derived from such gatherings. Introductions are there dealt
out wholesale to the individual in whose honour they are held. When a
stranger to Chicago, I had delivered a letter to a prominent citizen and
his wife from a mutual friend in New York. They knew everybody worth
knowing, and kindly offered to introduce me to their circle of friends.
On the evening appointed, I stood next to the hostess, and as one after
the other of the guests arrived, each was introduced to me by name. "Mr.
So-and-so," she said, "Mr. Felix Moscheles." Whereupon I had to shake
hands and say blandly, "Mr. So-and-so," whilst he had to repeat "Mr.
Felix Moscheles." If he had not caught my name, or had any doubt about
its pronunciation, he would make a stand and inquire: "_How_ was that?
How do you spell it?" and when once enlightened on those points they
would be fixed once for all in his mind. It was there he had the
advantage over me, for after a short interval I was sure to have
forgotten whether Mr. So-and-so's name spelt Homer D. V. Smith or Plato
V. D. Brown, and whether Homer and Plato were men at all, or ought to
have been connected in my mind with a Mrs. or a Miss.

But notwithstanding such imperfections of my memory, I had no difficulty
in retaining the names of many good friends I made in Chicago. Foremost
amongst these is Robert Morse.

I had got very busy in the studio I had taken in Chicago, where I was
spending the winter of 1887, when a very pleasantly-worded letter
reached me, inviting me to transfer my studio to Omaha, two days'
journey farther west. I could not accept the invitation, and so it was
arranged that at least one of my intending models should be brought to
me, to be dealt with according to the severe laws of the
portrait-painter's art. Robert Morse was four years of age, and had a
distinct objection to be thus dealt with, and out of that circumstance
arose a series of difficulties. But, oh, how beautiful he was! I see him
now