In kindness the reader will pardon these few words that flow in tears from the broken and burning heart of a fond father; they take but a line or two, and are the only monument that will be raised to the memory of my dear little George, who lived, in the sweetness of his innocence, to gladden and then to break the heart of his doating parent, the only one while he was living, to appreciate his loveliness, and now the only one to mourn for him. The remains of this dear little fellow were sent to New York, as a lovely flower to be planted by the grave of his mother, and thus were my pleasures and peace in Paris ended. Two idols of my heart had thus vanished from me there, leaving my breast with a _healing_ and a _fresh wound_, to be opened and bleeding together. My _atelier_ had lost all its charms; the _escalier_ also was dreary, for its wonted echoing and enlivening notes had ceased; and the beautiful pavement of the Place Madeleine, which was under my windows, and the daily resort, with his hoop and his drum, of my little "Tambour Major." The Boulevards also, and the Champs Elysées, and the garden of the Tuileries, the scenes of our daily enjoyment, were overcast with a gloom, and I left them all. * * * * * At the time of writing this my heart flies back and daily hovers about the scenes of so many endearing associations, while my hand is at work seeking amusement and forgetfulness at my easel. I have before said that the practice of my art is to be the principal ambition of the rest of my life; and as the beginning of this chapter found me in my _atelier_ in Paris, the end of it leaves me in my _studio_ at _No. 6, Waterloo Place_, in London, with my collection, my thousands of studies, and my little children about me where I shall be hereafter steadily seeking the rational pleasures and benefits I can draw from them; and where my friends and the world who value me or my works may find me without ceremony, and will be greeted, amongst the numerous and curious works in my collection, enumerated in the catalogue which I have given, for the amusement and benefit of the reader, at the end of my first volume. APPENDIX. (A.) _The two following Letters, written from the Ioway Mission on the Upper Missouri, with several others more recently received by Mrs. A. Richardson, of Newcastle-on-Tyne, bear conclusive proof of the sincerity of the Society of Friends, and of the benefit that promises to flow from their well-directed and charitable exertions._ IOWAY INDIANS. EXTRACT OF A LETTER FROM S. M. IRVIN. _Ioway and Sac Mission, May 24th, 1847._