Between myself and my father existed--until shortly after he married a second wife--feelings of respect and affection. During my boyhood his love for me was exhibited in every tender form which occurs to the mind of an affectionate father, and I entertained for him a love as sincere as his own. The death of my mother affected him powerfully. Their married life had been a happy one, and they lived in harmony. My mother was a woman with no ambition but that of making those around her happy. She compassed her ambition, the entire depth and scope of which was bounded by the word Home. After her death my father, never a man of much animation and conversation, became even quieter and more reserved in manner, but I am convinced his love for me was not lessened. He was a man of strong determination, and he had schooled himself to keep his passions and emotions in complete control. He was intense in his likes and dislikes--unobtrusively chivalrous and charitable--disposed to go to extremes in matters of feeling--thorough in friendship as in enmity--just in his dealings--and seldom, if ever, forgiving where his confidence was betrayed, or where he believed himself to be deceived. Such a man is apt to form wrong judgments--as my father did; to receive false impressions--as my father did; to be much deceived by cunning--as my father was. But if he was hasty to condemn, he was eager to make atonement when he discovered himself to be in the wrong. Then it was that the chivalry of his nature asserted itself.