quisitely lovely empress with the little boy
beside her, touching his cap shyly, but with something of her own grace,
in answer to a greeting--the boy who was thought to be born to an
imperial crown, but whose brief career was to find an ending from the
spears of savages in a quarrel in which he had no concern.

In the spring of 1862 it chanced that the Bishop of Ohio visited Paris,
and Mr. Forbes, then English chaplain at the Church of the Rue
d'Aguesseau, arranged to have a confirmation. As said above, I was under
deep "religious impressions", and, in fact, with the exception of that
little aberration in Germany, I was decidedly a pious girl. I looked on
theatres (never having been to one) as traps set by Satan for the
destruction of foolish souls; I was quite determined never to go to a
ball, and was prepared to "suffer for conscience sake"--little prig that
I was--if I was desired to go to one. I was consequently quite prepared
to take upon myself the vows made in my name at my baptism, and to
renounce the world, the flesh, and the devil, with a heartiness and
sincerity only equalled by my profound ignorance of the things I so
readily resigned. That confirmation was to me a very solemn matter; the
careful preparation, the prolonged prayers, the wondering awe as to the
"sevenfold gifts of the Spirit", which were to be given by "the laying on
of hands", all tended to excitement. I could scarcely control myself as I
knelt at the altar rails, and felt as though the gentle touch of the aged
Bishop, which fluttered for an instant on my bowed head, were the very
touch of the wing of that "Holy Spirit, heavenly Dove", whose presence
had been so earnestly invoked. Is there anything easier, I wonder, than
to make a young and sensitive girl "intensely religious".

My mother came over for the confirmation and for the "first communion" on
Easter Sunday, and we had a delightful fortnight together, returning home
after we had wandered hand-in-hand over all my favorite haunts. The
summer of 1862 was spent with Miss Marryat at Sidmouth, and, wise woman
that she was, she now carefully directed our studies with a view to our
coming enfranchisement from the "school-room." More and more were we
trained to work alone; our leading-strings were slackened, so that we
never felt them save when we blundered; and I remember that when I once
complained, in loving fashion, that she was "teaching me so little", she
told me that I was getting old