hus long delayed from an impression that it would probably
more certainly reach your hands if addressed to you at
Frederick.

I have read and re-read your letter with increasing
gratification and thankfulness. Truly am I grateful for the
friendly spirit that prompted you to make so thorough an
examination of the Speed correspondence as your _resume_ of
it discloses. That _resume_ is in every way admirable. It
has the clearness and logical force of a first-class
lawyer's brief. Indeed, I was on the point of asserting that
you have a good lawyer's head on your shoulders, but prefer
saying that you have a head which obeying the inspirations
of your heart enables you to discern and _appreciate_ the
truth and extricate it, as well, from the entanglements of
chicanery and fraud. Be assured, my dear Madam, that I shall
treasure up your letter fondly, at once as a consolation and
as a powerful support of the endeavors which I have been
making for years to rescue my name from the obloquy of an
accusation, than which nothing falser or fouler ever fell
from the lips of men or devils.

It was a severe shock for my faith in human nature when
General Speed--with whom I had maintained relations of
cordial friendship for some fifty years--suddenly allowed
himself to become a compliant coadjutor of Andrew Johnson in
his diabolical plot to destroy me. The _role_ of suppressing
the truth, which he voluntarily assumed for himself and in
which--without explanation or defense--he persisted down to
his grave, amounted fully to this and to nothing less. Yet
during all of that time he _knew_ me to be innocent, as well
as I myself knew and know it, and this he never denied.
Alas, Alas! what a masquerade is human life, and amid its
heady currents how rarely do we pause to think of the
possibilities that lurk under the disguise of its spotless
reputations!

I should be rejoiced to hear that the Summer has strewed
flowers and only flowers on the paths of your "outing," and
that you will be able to return to Washington glad of heart
and reinvigorated for the social duties in which you find
and bestow so much pleasure. For my own isolated and infirm
life home was thought to be the best place, and hence I have
remained here happily finding under my