There are relics, also, of a more private sort. For example, a smooth stone of two or three pounds weight, and a sketch or study on it by Ruskin, made at a hotel on Lake Neufchâtel, where he and Mrs. Stowe chanced to meet; he having fetched it in from the lake-shore one evening and painted it in her presence to illustrate his meaning in something he had said. One of her most prized possessions was a golden chain of ten links, which, on occasion of the gathering at Stafford House that has been referred to, the Duchess of Sutherland took from her own arm and clasped upon Mrs. Stowe’s, saying: “This is the memorial of a chain which we trust will soon be broken.” On several of the ten links were engraved the great dates in the annals of emancipation in England; and the hope was expressed that she would live to add to them other dates of like import in the progress of liberty this side the Atlantic. That was in 1853. Twelve years later every link had its inscription, and the record was complete. It was difficult to realize, as one was shown memorials of this kind, that the fragile, gentle-voiced little lady, who stood by explaining them, was herself the heroine in chief of the sublime conflict they recall. For a more unpretending person every way than she was, or one seeming to be more unconscious of gifts and works of genius, or of a great part acted in life, it is not possible to imagine. In her quiet home, attended by her daughters, surrounded by respect and affection, filled with the divine calm of the Christian faith, in perfect charity with all mankind, the most celebrated of American women passed the tranquil evening of her days. She would often be found seated at the piano, her hand straying over its keys--that hand that was clothed with such mighty power,--singing softly to herself those hymns of Gospel hope which were dear to her heart through all her earthly pilgrimage, alike in cloud and in sunshine. During her last years she almost wholly laid her pen aside, her last work having been the preparation, with her son’s assistance, of a brief memoir of her honored husband, who passed away in 1886.