im when he arrived. I was fully established and my church and concert
music was all I could ask for. My old spirit came back and I was happy
to know I had been able to help my husband through this $30,000
failure which had been such a blow to his pride and ambition and had
brought distress to his family. I received a letter that he was
coming on a certain steamer, and the boys and I were doing all we
could to have the home-coming complete. George was now fifteen years
old and William eleven. They had been going to school and had been
promoted each year and would have much to tell their father, himself a
man of letters and a graduate of Harvard University. His desire was
that the boys should excel, as had all the Blakes, Lincolns and
Sargents before them.

Each of these old and highly honored families of Massachusetts had
celebrated men among them, and they honored their forefathers and
tried to emulate their achievements and keep up the literary standard
of the Sargents, the military dignity of their great-grandfather,
Major Benjamin Lincoln of revolutionary fame, who took the sword from
Cornwallis and handed it to his general, George Washington; Eps
Sargent, the great writer of books, poetry and the song, "The Life on
the Ocean Wave," one of the famous songs of the time. These men were
the next of kin, and we were justly proud of the connection and tried
to uphold our side of the family honor as well as it was possible for
us of this generation to accomplish. The days were counted and each
evening we were happy in the recital of our part that was expected of
us when father returned. Only a short time remained to us who were
awaiting his coming. At last we were rewarded by the arrival of the
ship which was expected to bring our father, and the week had nearly
passed. On the fourth day a messenger from the ship came with a letter
from the captain that George L. Blake was dead and buried, in a
foreign land, with honors suitable to the man who had won for himself
the respect of all who knew him in the city of Melbourne. The railroad
offices were closed, the American flag at half mast, and men with
uncovered heads marched behind the hearse that bore the remains of
their distinguished member, the American gentleman from California, to
his last resting place. Our sorrow was too great to be realized, even
after reading the letter from the rector who had read the funeral
service over the dead, and who explained the circumstance