Bright little Miss Harriet Hosmer, with her hands in her jacket-pockets, and her short hair curling up round her velvet cap, struts cheerfully forth out of the obscurity of the past in my memory; her studio, I think, adjoined that of Gibson, of whom I remember nothing whatever. Her most notable production at that time was a Puck sitting on a toadstool, with a conical shell of the limpet species by way of a cap; he somehow resembled his animated and clever creator. Miss Hosmer's face, expressions, gestures, dress, and her manifestations in general were perfectly in keeping with one another; there never was a more succinct and distinct individuality; she was wholly unlike anybody else, without being in the least unnatural or affected. Her social manner was of a persistent jollity; but no doubt she had her grave moments or hours, a good and strong brain, and a susceptibility to tragic conceptions, as is shown by the noble figure of her Zenobia. This figure I saw in clay in her studio during our second season in Rome. Miss Hosmer's talk was quick, witty, and pointed; her big eyes redeemed her round, small-featured face from triviality; her warm heart glowed through all she said and did. Her studio was a contrast to the classicality of Gibson's, whose influence, though she had studied under him during her six years' residence in Rome, had affected her technique only, not her conceptions or aims in art. We all liked her much. She was made known to us, I believe, through the medium of grave, wise, humorous Sarah Clarke, the sister of the James Freeman Clarke who married my mother to my father, and who, twenty-two years later, read over my father the burial service. Sarah Clarke was often abroad; she was herself an admirable artist in water-color, and was always a dear friend of my mother's. After we had returned to Concord, in 1860, Miss Hosmer wrote to us, and one of her letters has been preserved; I quote it, because it is like her: